When our party was at “Independence Rock,” in 1850, and no Indians had disturbed the passing travellers, near where we were then, we “laid over” a day, and within the time a man came into camp and boasted that he had “knocked over a _buck_ at a distance of a hundred yards,” and when the query was made as to the whereabouts of his game he produced a _bloody scalp_. He gave as an excuse that the Indians had frightened an antelope he was trying to kill, and that he shot the Indian while the latter was endeavoring to get away. Is it unreasonable to suppose that the friends of the murdered Indian, when he came not to the lodge at nightfall, would hunt him up, and that, when his brother or friend saw his scalpless head, he should avow to avenge his death? Doubtless he did avenge both himself and his tribe, and he may have slain many innocent persons in retaliation for this foul deed. As to the cause of the Indian troubles on the Humbolt river, during the summer of 1850, I know nothing. Probably they originated in some lawless act similar to the one above described. In September following I loaned a rifle to a miner who was going out on a prospecting tour. On his return he proposed to buy it, saying that “it was a good one, he knew, because he tried it on an Indian, shooting from one bluff to another; and,” said this civilized white man, “I dropped him into the river, and he went where all good Injuns go.” Later in the season two friendly Indians came into the town of “Bidwell’s Bar,” and, although no evidence was produced against them, they were arrested on “general principles,” it was said; and while threats were made of hanging them on “general principles” too, _better_ counsels prevailed, and they were placed in charge of a guard, who were to convey them to “Long’s Bar,” and turn them over to the sheriff to be held for trial. _The guard returned in a short time, and reported that the prisoners had “slipped down a bank and were drowned.”_ It was, however, understood that they were killed by the guard “to save expense.” Following this accident several white men were murdered by Indians, it was said, although the murdered men, it was evident, had met death through _other instrumentality than bows and arrows_. A company was raised to go out and punish the offenders. On their return they reported grand success in finding Indian rancheros, and in the wholesale butchery they had committed. Do you wonder that twenty or thirty white men were _riddled with arrows within a short time, after such manly conduct, by the brave butchers of Indian women and children_?