Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) SHADOWS OF SHASTA. BY JOAQUIN MILLER, AUTHOR OF "SONGS OF THE SIERRAS," "THE DANITES IN THE SIERRAS," ETC. CHICAGO: JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANY. 1881. COPYRIGHT. JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANY. A. D. 1881. _All rights of Dramatization reserved to the Author._ TO WHITELAW REID. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTORY 7 MOUNT SHASTA 17 TWENTY CARATS FINE 49 MAN-HUNTERS 81 THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER 108 THE CAPTURE 122 THE ESCAPE 150 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. INTRODUCTORY. _With vast foundations seamed and knit, And wrought and bound by golden bars, Sierra's peaks serenely sit And challenge heaven's sentry-stars._ Why this book? Because last year, in the heart of the Sierras, I saw women and children chained together and marched down from their cool, healthy homes to degradation and death on the Reservation. At the side of this long, chained line, urged on and kept in order by bayonets, rode a young officer, splendid in gold and brass, and newly burnished, from that now famous charity-school on the Hudson. These women and children were guilty of no crime; they were not even accused of wrong. But their fathers and brothers lay dead in battle-harness, on the mountain heights and in the lava beds; and these few silent survivors, like Israel of old, were being led into captivity--but, unlike the chosen children, never to return to the beloved heart of their mountains. Do you doubt these statements about the treatment of the Indians? Then read this, from the man--the fiend in the form of man--who for years, and until recently, had charge of all the Indians in the United States: "From reports and testimony before me, I find that Indians removed to the Reservation or Indian Territory, die off so rapidly that the race must soon become extinct if they are so removed. _In this connection, I recommend the early removal of all the Indians to the Indian Territory._" The above coarse attempt at second-hand wit is quoted from memory. But if the exact words are not given, the substance is there; and, indeed, the idea and expression is not at all new.