Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/85

 danger at hand. Every one jumped to their guns. I jumped on a horse, barebacked, to go and meet him, and my men did likewise. When we met him my first word was, “What is it?” He said, “We shall all die this very day.” “Why?” said I. “Oh, somebody has killed a white man and another is almost dead.” “Where are they?” said I. “At the Deep Wells.” One of the men said, “Did you see them?” He said, “Yes, and that is not all; our agent has gone to get soldiers to come and kill us all.” I said, “Where did you see him?” ”Half way to the soldiers.”

Just then we heard another alarm. We all turned our heads towards the noise. We saw another of our men coming as if he was running for his dear life. We all ran to meet him. He too said, “We shall all be killed.” He told the same thing about one dead man and one almost dead. So we returned to the camp again.

The sub-chief sent out spies to watch and come in to tell us in time to meet our enemies. In this way passed the day. Newgent, our agent, had left his house at daybreak to go to the fort to see some of the officers there. He rode up to the house, got off his horse, and went in to tell them about the trouble he had on the agency. A fearful thing met his eyes. One man was really dead, and the other almost dead. He asked what was the matter. The man answered, “Three Indians came here last night and shot us, and they thought they had killed both of us. They have taken all our things away, and they swore at us in good English language that the agent had their brother killed.” Poor man, he did not know that he was talking to the very devil that had made all the trouble. Very late that evening, two of our men came as before. They brought me a letter; these were the words:—