He had not yet returned when I saw a party of Indians, numbering in all, from twenty to twenty-five, stringing, with great care and silence, up the valley. Quite unconscious of our ambush, they advanced right into it. But, that the boys fired too soon, not a single one of the luckless red-skins would have escaped. As it was, eight of them paid the penalty of having mistaken our signal-fires for those of their own friends. In almost a word, I may say that the slaughter of fifty-one Modocs had atoned for the death of our luckless associate, Bob Thorn. His was the first name wiped out from the Buckskin Rangers, and, after we had punished the tribe which had taken his life, not unnaturally, his memory was frequently recalled by most of us, with sorrow. I was possibly the only one of the Rangers that remembered the close of his life, with something approaching pleasure. The dead man had been enabled by it, to escape that most horrible of dooms, as I was too well aware, the slow death at the stake. About the end of February, we once more reached the settlement at the lower end of Honey Lake. We were enabled to carry with us a fair stock of skins, or as the traders call them, "peltry." These we disposed of at a reasonable and remunerative figure. No sooner had we done so, than after a few days' idleness spent with friends and acquaintances, the larger part of us decided upon returning to our silver lodes upon the Humboldt River. The truth is, that during the past fall and winter, the report of our success in prospecting for ore in that locality, had spread far and wide. It had exercised the usual charm which the news of such a discovery invariably does. If we had delayed in the occupancy of our claims, we might, in the sequel, have found them a subject of dispute. The law of the mines is an unwritten one. Consequently, its strictness in some points is only equalled by its vagueness in others. Here our luck was various enough, but on the whole we fairly prospered. Nothing of particular account, however, presents itself for me to put on record, save the presence of my friends and his Grizzlyship, my now considerably large pet, Charley. On returning from our life at these mines, we spent the whole of the following winter in the valley or at Susanville. It would be useless to inquire into the reason of our doing so. Possibly we were lazy, or more probably had reaped too much profit from mining and trapping, during the past year. However, there were no Indian troubles that season. There may be an equal chance that this was the reason of our comparative inactivity.