Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/188

172 twenty-six and are bringing the rest as prisoners, and now want the one at the sawmill." In about half an hour the rest came into Coloma on a run. A crowd had gathered, and now almost three hundred people were following to see what would be done with the Indians. They were all driven under a large pine tree where they dropped down with fatigue—the day being intensely hot. The one from the mill was soon brought in and as soon as the women saw him, they rose up wailing and crying, and pushed him from them out of the circle, saying: "You are no longer one of us. You have deceived us; you were going to save our husbands and now they are all killed." As the Indian women pushed him away, John Greenwood threw a lasso over his head and shoulders, but as this was done, Winters—the California trader and the Indian's employer at the mill—snatched the rope as if to free the Indian. Then a shout went up from the thirteen men, "Shoot him, shoot him, the d——d s—n of a b———, shoot him!" An Oregonian, Flem Hill, clutched Winters by the collar, saying to him: "Get out of here or you will be riddled with bullets," and cried, "Don't shoot him, boys."

They finally let all the Indians go except seven prisoners, which included the one from the mill, and these they placed in a small house where three men volunteered to keep guard over them until they could send for Sutter. A Doctor Ames (alias) volunteered to go and get Sutter. He started and brought back a letter from Sutter deputizing him (Ames) to try the Indians, ami he asked them for the keys to the house. Sutter's letter stated that as he had no United States troops he did not think it was safe for him to go up to Coloma among a lot of thieves and murderers from Oregon. An Oregonian named Hill replied to Ames, calling him by his true name: "No, we