Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/201

Rh other stake. But he said he had never seen a man before that took it as hard as this one did.

It was all new to me, and a little of it went a long ways.

That night after Jim Beckwith and I had retired, I told him that I had seen all of San Francisco that I cared to, and was ready to leave. However, we stayed two days longer, after which we pulled out for the Sierra Nevadas, by the way of Hangtown, a little mining camp situated at the American Fork. Here we crossed over a pass that Jim had told me of more than a year previous, which led us to the headwaters of the Carson river.

I proposed we give it the name of Beckwith Pass; and from that day to this it has been known by that name, and since has been made a splendid stage road.

After traveling down the Carson river some distance, we met a party of miners who informed us that a few days previous a band of Indians down on the Humboldt had made an attack on an emigrant train, cut off a portion of the train, stampeded the teams, killed all the people of that part of the train and burned the wagons.

They also informed us that Col. Elliott was down on what was known as Truckee Meadows with a company of soldiers, but, so far, was having very poor success killing Indians.

Col. Elliott had been sent out there with four companies of cavalry to protect the emigrants against the Pah-Ute or Piute Indians, which were very numerous down on the Humboldt, and around the sink of the Carson and as far up the mountains as Lake Tahoe.

Jim being very well acquainted with Col. Elliott, pro-