Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/68

 you, no one to come with game and say, ‘Here, sister, here is game for you.’ You are left all alone. Oh, my sweet son,—gone, gone!”

This was the first trouble the poor Washoes had with white people, and the only one they ever did have with them.

So the day passed away, and the two dead Washoes were taken away, and their bodies were burned. That is their custom. The other was taken to California. My poor little sister made herself sick she cried so much that day.

Two days afterwards Major Ormsbey sent his men home; so he did my cousin, who is called young Winnemucca, and brother staid longer for us, because we had been with Major Ormsbey a long time, and we could talk very well. My poor little sister was so very sick it was two weeks before we could go to our mother. When we got home it was winter. There was so much snow that we staid in the mountains where now stands the great city called Virginia City. It was then our Pine-nut mountains. Some time during the winter the Washoe chief came and told us that the white men who killed McMullen and MacWilliams were caught. My brother Natchez said,—

“Oh, have they been caught?” “Yes, that is what Major Ormsbey said; so did all the others.” The Washoe chief went on and said, “I have come to ask you to pay me for the loss of the two men. The white men have brought back the other men, and they say that they have hung two men.” My brother told the Washoe chief that his people had nothing to do with what the white people had done. “It is you who ought to pay the poor mother and sister and wife of your own tribe, because you gave them up yourself, therefore you must not blame us. We only did our duty, and we all know that the white men did