One night, while some strange Indians were lodging there, a still more
terrible scene transpired in this dreadful little den than had yet been
conceived. The two children fled as usual into the darkness, back into
the deep woods. Shots were heard, and then a death-yell that echoed far
up and down the canyon. Then there were cries, shrieks of women, as if
they were being seized and borne away. Fainter and fainter grew their
cries; further and further, down on the high ledge of the canyon in the
darkness, into the deep wood, they seemed to be borne. And at last their
cries died away altogether.

The next morning a dead Indian was found at the door of the empty lodge.
But the women and the children were nowhere to be seen. Some said the
Indian Agent's men had come to take the Indians away, and that the man
resisting had been shot, while the women and children were taken to the
Reservation, where they belonged. But there was a darker story, and told
under the breath, and not spoken loud. Let it be told under the breath,
and briefly here, also. Some drunken wretches had shot the Indians,
carried the women down to the dark woods above the deep swollen river,
and then, after the most awful orgies ever chronicled, murdered them and
sunk their bodies in the muddy river.

It was nearly a week after that the two children stole down from the
wooded hill-side into the trail, where old Forty-nine found them on his
return from work. They were so weak they could not speak or cry out for
help. They could only reach their little hands and implore help, as,
timid and frightened, they tottered towards this first human being they
had dared to face for a whole week.

The strong man hesitated a moment; they looked so frightful he wanted to
escape from their presence. But his grand, noble nature came to the
surface in a second; and dropping his pick and pan in the trail, he
caught up the two children, and in a moment more was, with one in each
arm, rushing down the trail to his cabin. He met some men, and passed
others. They all looked at him with wonder. One even laughed at him.

And it is hard to comprehend this. There were good men--good in a
measure; men who would have gallantly died to save a woman--men who were
true men on points of honor; yet men who could not think of even being
civil to an Indian, or any one with a bit of Indian blood in his veins.
Is our government responsible for this? I do not say so. I only know
that it exist