Early in the Spring of 1863, Winnemuck, a warrior chief of the Bannacks, and his band of braves, camped in the sage brush above the town. One of the citizens of Bannack made known the fact that he had been informed by a white lad, whom he had met at the time of his escape from these Indians several years before, that they had slain his parents, and captured two sisters and himself. The elder of the sisters died of harsh treatment. A white girl who had been seen in Winnemuck’s band, was supposed to be the other. A few citizens met at my cabin to devise means for her ransom, as any attempt at forcible rescue would provoke the Indians to violence. Skinner called the roughs together at his saloon. They decided that the circumstances were sufficiently aggravating to justify the slaughter of the band, and made preparations for that object. Meantime a half-breed apprised Winnemuck of his danger. Nowise alarmed, the old chief ranged his three hundred warriors along the valley, where they could command the approach of an enemy, however formidable. So confident was he of victory in the threatened encounter, that he promised to follow it up by a general massacre of every white person in the gulch. Fortunately at this time, whiskey came to the rescue. The leaders got drunk, the allied citizens were disgusted, and a murderous enterprise that would probably have cost many lives was abandoned. In pursuance of the arrangements first made at the meeting in my cabin, Mr. Carroll, for a very small consideration, effected the ransom of the little girl, and took her to his cabin. The inadequacy of the price roused in all a suspicion that the Indians intended to recapture the child. Carroll was enjoined to secrete her against such a possibility. The Indians loitered around his cabin, and finally made an attempt to carry her off. An alarm was given, the citizens and roughs rallied, the Indians released the child, and ran to escape the attack of the citizens. In the _mêlée_, Hayes Lyons, one of the roughs, fired at and wounded an Indian who was on the retreat, and who at the time was shouting “good Indian,” to intimate his friendly disposition. “Old Snag,” a Bannack chief, who had come with his band into town a few days before, and who when the alarm was given was in Carroll’s cabin, now came out, and was talking with his daughter, when Buck Stinson, another of the ruffian gang, without the least intimation of his design, walked close beside him, and shot him in the side and head. The old man, who had always been friendly to the people, fell dead in his tracks; and Skinner, with savage brutality, came up and scalped him. CHAPTER XX A MASONIC FUNERAL