Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/149

 Jackson Kelley 121

posed to connive at their villainy, sought an opportunity to destroy me. One of them discharged his rifle at me, and very nearly hit the mark; and at a subsequent time the rifle was again leveled at me, but at the moment a word from Young staid the death-charged bullet. . . .^*

"Two of them had belonged to the party of twenty-five, under [Joseph] Walker [of the American Fur company], of whom Capt. Bonneville speaks in his 'Adventures Beyond the Rocky Mountains.' Walker's chief object had been, for more than a year, to hunt and destroy Indians. Those two persons themselves informed me about it, and spoke often of the black flag, and the rifle, and the arsenic. The other three were runaway sailors — may have been pirates ; they were now marauders and Indian assassins. I will illustrate. Some days after, crossing the [San] J[o]aquin river towards evening, we passed an Indian village ; three of the monster men, find- ing the males absent, entered their dwellings, ravished the women, and took away some of their most valuable effects, and overtook the party at the place of encampment. I saw in their possession some of the articles of their plunder. The next day, after proceeding two or three miles over the prairie, one of the party cried out, 'Indians are coming,' and there were fifty or more Indians advancing towards us. I turned and advanced towards them; the men in the rear of the animals were with me. The Indians halted and I halted, at the distance of perhaps two rods from the chief. He was tall, good-looking, stood firm and seemed undaunted before us. A red card was pendant from his plumed cap, he held in the right hapd his bow, and in the left a quiver. He addressed me as though he would explain what brought him and his men to that place. He spoke in the language of nature, and I thought I under- stood what he said. I addressed him, also, in the language of nature, by gestures and significant motions; tried to induce a retreat, and save the lives of his young warriors ; pointed to our rifles and to their bows, and to the ground ; and I tried to

14 SftHtm^nt of Oregon, $7,