Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/199

Rh himself from the surface by a willow when we was shot. His body was found the next day still clinging.

One of the Indians, however, ran toward the hill, and was climbing up the steep side, but was pursued by an Irishman named "Billy" McGee, a sailor, a little man, but a swift runner. As the Indian saw that he would be overtaken, he halted on the steep hillside immediately above McGee, and casting off his blanket, drew a concealed knife, with which he made a stroke, but losing his foothold fell directly before the sailor, by whom he was quickly dispatched.

The Oregonians had taken pains to give the Indians a trial, having for the purpose of taking evidence, secured as interpreter an Indian girl who understood both English and Spanish. Through her they learned who were the guilty parties. The Indian men refused to talk, further than to deny the charge: but the Indian women pointed out the guilty ones. It was not the intention to hang all the Indians, but all were shot in trying to escape. That some of the tribe remaining were angry at the women who gave evidence was proved by finding later the bodies of the four Indian women who testified against the men, concealed in a thicket, where they had fallen, shot full of arrows.

The merchants of Coloma generally opposed the execution of the Indians, and in this they were supported by many of the Eastern men just arrived, who looked upon the methods of the Oregonians as too severe. They also feared that there would be a general Indian uprising. It was also generally understood that the traders profited greatly by the trade of the Indians, and even by the murder or robberies they committed; and when much dust was brought by them to the town suspicion at once arose that miners had been killed. Merchants at Coloma at that time were, as Mrs. Clayton remembers them,