“_My dear Sister Mary_,—_I am afraid you will go nearly crazy when you read my letter_. _If Jerry_” (_the writer’s eldest brother_) “_has not written to you before now_, _you will be surprised to heare that we are in California_, _and that poor Thomas_” (_another brother_, _of fifteen_) “_is dead_. _We started from_ — _in July_, _with plenly of provisions and too yoke oxen_. _We went along very well till we got within six or seven hundred miles of California_, _when the Indians attacked us_. _We found places where they had killed the emigrants_. _We had one passenger with us_, _too guns_, _and one revolver_; _so we ran all the lead We had into bullets_ (_and_) _hung the guns up in the wagon so that we could get at them in a minit_. _It was about two o’clock in the afternoon_; _droave the cattel a little way_; _when a prairie chicken alited a little way from the wagon_. “_Jerry took out one of the guns to shoot it_, _and told Tom drive the oxen_. _Tom and I drove the oxen_, _and Jerry and the passenger went on_. _Then_, _after a little_, _I left Tom and caught up with Jerry and the other man_. _Jerry stopped Tom to come up_; _me and the man went on and sit down by a little stream_. _In a few minutes_, _we heard some noise_; _then three shots_ (_they all struck poor Tom_, _I suppose_); _then they gave the war hoop_, _and as many as twenty of the redskins came down upon us_. _The three that shot Tom was hid by the side of the road in the bushes_. “_I thought the Tom and Jerry were shot_; _so I told the other man that Tom and Jerry were dead_, _and that we had better try to escape_, _if possible_. _I had no shoes on_; _having a sore foot_, _I thought I would not put them on_. _The man and me run down the road_, _but We was soon stopped by an Indian on a pony_. _We then turend the other way_, _and run up the side of the Mountain_, _and hid behind some cedar trees_, _and stayed there till dark_. _The Indians hunted all over after us_, _and verry close to us_, _so close that we could here there tomyhawks Jingle_. _At dark the man and me started on_, _I stubing my toes against sticks and stones_. _We traveld on all night_; _and next morning_, _just as it was getting gray_, _we saw something in the shape of a man_. _It layed Down in the grass_. _We went up to it_, _and it was Jerry_. _He thought we ware Indians_. _You can imagine how glad he was to see me_. _He thought we was all dead but him_, _and we thought him and Tom was dead_. _He had the gun that he took out of the wagon to shoot the prairie Chicken_; _all he had was the load that was in it_.