guard all night. The next morning Jim Clark and John Attebury arrived at
the station, and it was determined to follow and punish the Indians and
recover the stolen stock. They followed the trail into the rough brakes
of Trout Creek and located the camp. The Indians had halted in a small
basin on the mountain side through which ran a small branch, bordered
with willows, where they had killed an ox and were enjoying a feast. The
five men approached as near as possible and then leaving their horses
made their way up the ravine upon which the unsuspecting savages were
camped. Howard Maupin was armed with a Henry rifle, a present to the old
hero from General George Crook. Silently the men made their way up the
rough and rugged ravine until they lay concealed seventy yards away.
Taking deadly aim the five men fired, killing four Indians. The Indians
fled to the protection of a rugged cliff of rocks, but Maupin's rifle
kept following them with deadly effect. One Indian was picked out as the
chief and fell at the crack of the rifle. He raised on his hands and
halloed to the others until they reached the shelter of the rocks. It
required two more shots to finish him, and thus died Polina, or Penina,
the leader of the Snakes and scourge of the white man. The shot from
Howard Maupin's repeating rifle closed the Snake, or Shoshone war, and
peace reigned until their great uprising under Chief Egan in 1877.
For a year or more, or until the spring of 1868, I followed the hum-drum
life of a printer. A call of duty compelled me to lay all else aside to
care for an invalid brother, Judge J. M. Thompson. He was dying of
chronic dyspepsia. Physicians had given him up. He was a mere shadow,
and while we had little hope of recovery, we determined to take him into
the mountains. As soon, therefore, as spring opened we made our
preparations. Our provisions consisted of unbolted flour and salt.
Nothing else was taken--no tea, coffee, or indeed anything else save
our bedding, guns and ammunition. We journeyed up the McKinzie fork of
the Willamette. Game was everywhere abundant and this and bread baked
from our flour constituted our only food. It was going back to nature.
A week or so after we arrived at our camp, my younger brother killed a
very large bear that had just come out of his hibernating quarters and
was as fat as a corn fed Ohio porker. An old hunter endeavored to
persuade my brother to eat some of the fat bear meat, assuring him it
would not make him sick. Now, grease was his special aversion, and to
grease the oven with any kind of fat caused him to spit up his food.
Finally, to please the old hunter, he ate a small piece of fat bear
meat. Very much to his surprise, it did not make him sick. The next meal
he ate more, and after that all he wanted. He gained flesh and strength
rapidly, and it was but a short time until he could walk a hundred yards
without assistance. After that his recovery was rapid and sure.
Now, high up on the McKinzie we were told of a hot spring, and that vast
herds of elk and deer came there daily to lick the salt that was
precipitated on the rocks by the hot water. We determined to move there.
But when we arrived we found a rushing, roaring, turbulent river, 75
yards wide, between us and the hot spring. The deer and elk were there
all right, the great antlered monarchs tossing their heads in play, but
safe as if miles away. In vain we sought a narrow place where we could
fell a tree. We found, however, a spot where the water was smooth,
though swift as a mill-race, and we determined to make a canoe.
Accordingly we set to work, and after many tedious days laboring with
one axe and fire our canoe was completed. I was something of an expert
in the management of a canoe and when it had been placed in the river,
made a trip across. It was a success, and delighted with our
achievement, we began ferrying over our effects. One after another,
everything but our clothing and cooking utensils were ferried over,
provisions, that is, the flour and salt, rifles, ammunition, bedding, in
fact all but the above articles. My younger brother was assisting me
with the canoe, and the last trip with the last load was being made.
Like the pitcher that goes often to the well, immunity had bred
carelessness, with the result that the boat was turned over in the