CHAPTER XV.

TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS.

Meantime there was a grand panic in the several towns along the Comstock range. Many men, women, and children at once left for California. The night after the survivors of the fight at Pyramid Lake came in, it was reported in Virginia City and Gold Hill that the Indians were advancing in full force and were but twenty miles away. This news caused a grand stampede, many men suddenly remembering that they had business on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

At Virginia City, during this season of alarms, the women and children who remained were corraled for safety in a large stone hotel, that was being built by Peter O’Riley, and the walls of which were up to such a height that it made a pretty fair sort of a fort.

There were frequent night alarms and at times it was reported that the Indians were on their way up Six-mile Cañon to attack the town. There were but two classes of persons in the place, those who were not at all frightened, and those who were frightened almost out of their wits.

One night when there was an alarm at Virginia, a Dutchman got his partner to let him down into a shaft, about fifty feet in depth, thinking that about the safest place that could be found in case of an Indian raid.

After the Dutchman had been deposited at the bottom of the shaft his partner went down into the town. He had been there but a short time before a lot of horses and mules were stampeded somewhere down the cañon and came charging up toward the town with great clatter. All thought the Indians were surely coming this time, and not a few went out of the town by the back trails and struck out for California.

Among these was the Dutchman’s partner. In his fright he thought only of himself. The poor Teuton roosted at the bottom of the shaft for three days and nights before he was discovered, and was almost dead when taken out.

The people of Silver City determined to stand their ground. They were on the war-path. Just above their town, on Gold Cañon, rugged rocks rise to the height of two hundred feet or more, leaving a very narrow pass. This place is called the Devil’s Gate, and here the Silverites determined to make the Indians smell “villainous saltpeter.” They went up on top of the Devil’s Gate, and built a stone fort about two rods in diameter. The genius in command of this enterprise then bored out a pine log, hooped it with iron bands, and mounting it in the fort as a cannon, filled it full of pieces of scrap-iron, bits of chain, and the like. The muzzle was so pointed that when fired it would sweep the cañon for a great distance, making it very unpleasant for any Indians who might happen to be jogging up that way.

After the war was over, some parties one day concluded to fire this wooden gun off. They took it from the fort and carried it to a considerable distance back on the hill, rigged a slow match to it, and then got out of the way.

When the explosion finally came, the air was filled in all directions, for many rods, with pieces of scrap-iron, iron bands, and chunks of wood. Had it ever been fired in the fort it would have killed every man near it.

At Virginia City, when the news of the defeat at Pyramid Lake came, among other business transacted was the unanimous adoption of the following resolution:

“_Resolved_, That during the next sixty days, or until the settlement of the present Indian difficulties, no claim or mining ground within the Territory, shall be subject to re-location, or liable to be jumped for non-work.”

This gave many persons who had urgent business in California an opportunity of going over and attending to it—doubtless many started soon after voting upon the resolution.

On the 24th of May, the second expedition against the Indians left Virginia City. It consisted of a force of 207 regular soldiers and 549 volunteers, all armed with minie-muskets and well equipped in every respect.

The regulars had with them two twelve-pounder mountain howitzers, and all felt in starting out that they were now prepared to give the Indians a good substantial battle, in case they should be found in fighting humor.

About noon, June 2d., the Piutes were found in force near the old battle-ground at Pyramid Lake, and fire was opened on them.

As soon as the firing began, the plain, the ravines, hillsides, sand-drifts, and mountain tops seemed alive with Indians.

The battle was short and decisive. The Indians were severely punished. They lost 160 killed and had a great many wounded, while the whites had but two men killed and only three or four wounded. Captain E. F. Storey, from whom Storey county, Nevada, takes its name, was shot through the lungs, and died in camp in the evening. Captain Storey was taking aim at an Indian who was lying behind a rock at the time he received his death wound. The Indian was too quick for him and got the first shot. Storey’s men instantly riddled the fellow.

This expedition brought in the remains of Meredith and Major Ormsby. The bodies of many of the dead were found to have been horribly mutilated. About the place where the bodies of the volunteers were found, the ground, for the space of two hundred yards, was beaten as solid as a brickyard. Appearances indicated that the Indians had taken these men alive, and had held a big dance about them before killing them.

After this battle no more was seen of the Indians in a long time, and there has been no trouble with them since.

In September of that year, Winnemucca, chief of the tribe, visited Fort Churchill, (a fort that was built on the Carson River, near Williams’ Station, after the last battle at Pyramid Lake,) accompanied by several leading men of his tribe. The old fellow said that he not only desired at that time, but at all other times had desired, to live at peace with the whites. The late trouble had been brought about by a few Bannocks, a lot of Shoshones and Pitt River Indians, with some bad Piutes. The whites had, he said, charged in among his people without seeking an interview with him and he had defended himself to the best of his ability. He hoped that the peace would be permanent, and desired that the whites and Piutes should now become firm friends and allies.

After the trouble was all over the cause of it was ascertained. It was this.—In the absence of Williams, proprietor of the station where the massacre, as it was called, occurred, two or three men left in charge had seized upon two young Piute women and had treated them in the most outrageous manner, keeping them shut up in an outside cellar or cave for a day or two.

The husband of one of the women coming in search of his wife, heard her voice calling him from the place in which she was hidden. When he attempted to go to his wife’s assistance the men at the station beat him and drove him away, threatening to kill him if he did not leave at once.

It so happened that the women who had been outraged were of the branch of the Piute tribe living at Walker Lake who had married men of the Bannock tribe. The Indian who was driven away from the station hastened to Walker Lake and informed the chief man there of the outrage, asking him to send a band of braves to punish the men at the station. But the sub-chief at Walker Lake would send no men.

The wronged Indian then went to Old Winnemucca, who said he would send no men, that he wanted no trouble with the whites. His advice was that the whites be informed of the outrage, and requested to punish the men in their own way, in accordance with their laws.

Not satisfied with this, the Bannock went to young Winnemucca, the war chief. Here he was given the same advice that he had already received from the old chief. Thirsting for vengeance, the man then hastened to his own country and his own chief.

When the chief of the Bannocks had heard the man’s story he at once gave him thirty of his best men, and told him to go and avenge the wrong that had been done him. He went and the result is known.

After killing the men and burning the station, the Bannocks marked their return trail with blood. They murdered in cold blood several small parties of unarmed prospectors. The bodies of these were not discovered until after the last fight at Pyramid Lake, when the murders were charged to the account of the Piutes.

[Illustration: SAVAGES.]

Old Winnemucca was not at the first fight at Pyramid Lake, he being on the Humboldt River at the time, but young Winnemucca, the war-chief, was there, and commanded.

Before the fight began he showed a white flag and wished to explain matters, but a man among the whites, who had a telescope rifle, fired and killed an Indian who showed himself on the rocks, and thus precipitated the battle which ended so disastrously for the whites.

When the volunteers returned victorious from the second battle, they were the heroes of the hour, until some of them began to walk into stores and help themselves to clothing.

They called this mode of obtaining clothing “pressing” it, and declared that it was a military necessity. Some of the merchants thought they were “pressing” it a little too strong when they began to help themselves to fine calf-skin boots and cassimere pantaloons, and in two or three instances fights ensued in which pistols were used, one of the merchants and two or three of the raiders receiving severe wounds. This “pressing” was done by a “hoodlum” class that came over the Sierras among the volunteers. These were the men who took Indian scalps after the battle. In one instance one of them found an Indian lying with his back broken by a minie musket-ball. Drawing his bowie-knife he proceeded to scalp the poor devil alive. As he was sawing away at the tough scalp, the Indian spat in his face. This had the desired effect—the white butcher drew his revolver and blew out the Indian’s brains. The officers allowed no scalping, yet two or three scalps found their way to Virginia City.

“Old Gus,” an old Dutchman, marched about the town, from saloon to saloon, with an Indian bow stuck in the muzzle of his musket, at the end of which dangled a scalp. This gave “Old Gus” all the whisky he wanted. Wherever he came it was: “Hurrah for Old Gus, he got his Injun!”

The captain of one of the volunteer companies afterwards told me that in passing over the ground after the fight he chanced to come upon Old Gus, behind a rock, industriously engaged in skinning the head of a dead Indian, meanwhile calmly smoking his pipe.