Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/196

138 When we were ready to leave the village, the chief came out and bade us good-bye, and gave us a cordial invitation to call on him when passing through the country.

We crossed the Gila river near where Colville now stands. Here was a tribe of very indolent Indians, that during this season of the year did not wear a stitch of clothing of any kind whatever. They were known as the Yumas.

We both emptied our rifles before crossing the river, knowing that they would get wet in crossing. I fired at a bird across the river and it fell to the ground.

At the crack of my rifle the Indians ran a few paces from me, dropped down and stuck their fingers in their ears. They told us in Spanish that they had never seen a wah-hootus before, meaning a gun with a loud report.

When Jim Beckwith went to fire his gun off, the squaws all ran away, but the bucks, being more brave, stayed, but held their hands over their ears. This tribe lived principally on fish.

The reader will remember that I had traveled over this same country in the year 1849 in company with Kit Carson and Col. Fremont, when on our trip to California.

After traveling about five miles we crossed a little sage-brush valley that was almost covered with jack-rabbits, and they were dying by the thousand. We could see twenty at one time lying dead in the sage-brush.

That night we camped on what has since been known as Beaver creek, and here we had to strike across the San Antonio desert, and having been across the desert I knew it would be eighty miles to water. Having two