The Wallapais have had the same trouble about the white man seizing the best land on their reservation that most other tribes have been subject to. When the reserve was set apart by executive order a man named Spencer was living on land included therein, and he claimed two of the finest of the springs, one, that of Mattaweditita, being their most sacred of places. He was soon murdered, whether by Indians or whites I am unable to say, and no one occupied these springs until a man named W. F. Grounds, regardless of the executive order, took possession of, and claimed, Mattaweditita to the exclusion of the Wallapais. This he sold to a man named J. W. Munn. Later he and Munn had quarrels about it and both claimed it. Then the Indian Agent interfered, and, finding that the Indians had always claimed it as their own, that it was on their reserve, and that they actually wished to continue to cultivate it, he ordered both men to leave. Grounds had about seventy-five head of cattle and Munn had a garden. The latter vacated quietly, but Grounds brought back his cattle after they were removed. In the meantime the Indians had planted their gardens, and when the cattle came in their crops were speedily demolished. Again the cattle were removed and again brought back. About this time some one generously gave to the Indians, or left where they could be picked up, some melons or cucumbers or both, of which fourteen of the Wallapais living in Mattaweditita Canyon partook. Of the fourteen, thirteen sickened and died. Of course there was no way of fastening this dastardly and cowardly crime upon any one, but whites as well as Indians are pretty generally agreed as to who was its perpetrator. The few remaining Indians were now given wire to fence in the canyon, but the old animals of Grounds' herds pushed the wires down in their eagerness to get to and eat the Indians' wheat. The trails were now fenced, and this proved an effectual bar. Later this exemplary white man turned a band of saddle horses into an Indian's garden on the reservation for pasturage. This brought upon him an order of exclusion from the reservation and a command to entirely remove his stock within a year. Whether this has been done or not I am unable to say, although the Department at Washington confirmed the order and required that it be done. During all this squabbling it can well be imagined how the crops of the Indian suffers; but what must be his conception of white men, their government, and their justice? CHAPTER XII THE ADVENT OF THE WALLAPAIS