CHAPTER VIII.
DISASTER OVERTAKES THE WOOD FAMILY.
Our consolidated train continued its creeping pace down the meandering Humboldt; crossing the stream occasionally, to gain the advantage of a shorter or better road.
Soon again there were other proofs of the wisdom we had shown in taking every possible precaution against attack.
Next ahead of us was a family from England, a Mr. Wood, his wife and one child, with two men employed as drivers. They were outfitted with three vehicles, two of them drawn by ox teams, in charge of the hired men, and a lighter, spring-wagon, drawn by four mules, the family conveyance, driven by Mr. Wood. We had not known them before.
One very hot day in the latter part of August, after having moved along for a time with no train in sight ahead of us, we came upon Mr. Wood in a most pitiable plight, the result of an attack and slaughter, not differing greatly from the Holloway case, and its parallel in atrocity.
Mr. Wood's party had spent the preceding night undisturbed, and were up early in the morning, preparing to resume their journey. The ox teams had been made ready and moved on, while Mr. Wood proceeded in a leisurely way with harnessing the four mules and attaching them to the smaller wagon. All the articles of their equipment had been gathered up and placed in proper order in the wagon.
When Mr. Wood had nearly completed hitching the team, Mrs. Wood and the baby being already in the wagon, some men, apparently all Indians, twenty or more of them, were seen coming on horseback, galloping rapidly from the hills to the northward, about half a mile away.