Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/644

506 knowing so well the cause of all this trouble, and just what brought it about, I could not help sympathizing with the women and children. In fact, I had felt from the very start that this trouble was all uncalled for. Among the crowd was one young squaw who spoke pretty fair English for an Indian in those days. I was well acquainted with her, and told her that we would have to take them all, but that they would be treated as prisoners. She did not seem to understand the meaning of "prisoners."

I explained to her, and she in her own tongue explained it to the rest of the crowd. I told her that we would have to take them back to headquarters.

She said: "We heap hungry, long time no eat much. Maby white man no give us anything to eat. 'Spose no eat purty soon all die." I assured her that they would have plenty to eat as long as they behaved themselves and gave the soldiers no trouble.

They all seemed to be perfectly willing to surrender and go back to headquarters, so we started back via Tule Lake. When we reached the mouth of Lost river I turned the prisoners over to the two sergeants who had charge of the two platoons of soldiers. George and I wanted to make a circuit around in the direction of Clear Lake, thinking, of course, that the prisoners would be perfectly safe in charge of the soldiers, especially those little girls. George and I did not get to headquarters that night until ten o'clock, and the first thing I heard when I got into camp was that the Indians had tried to run off into the tules while coming down Tule Lake, and they had all been shot down by the soldiers,