ss with a violence that nearly
smashed it. "Ye see I wos up in the mountains, near the head waters o'
the Sacramento, lookin' out for deer, and gittin' a bit o' gold now an'
again, when, one day, as I was a-comin' down a gully in the hills, I
comes all of a suddint on two men. One wos an Injun, as ugly a sinner
as iver I seed; t'other wos a Yankee lad, in a hole diggin' gold.
Before my two eyes were well on them, the red villain lets fly an arrow,
and the man fell down with a loud yell into the hole. Up goes my rifle
like wink, and the red-skin would ha' gone onder in another second, but
my piece snapped--cause why? the primin' had got damp; an' afore I could
prime agin, he was gone.

"I went up to the poor critter, and sure enough it wos all up with him.
The arrow went in at the back o' his neck. He niver spoke again. So I
laid him in the grave he had dug for himself, and sot off to tell the
camp. An' a most tremendous row the news made. They got fifty
volunteers in no time, and went off, hot-fut, to scalp the whole nation.
As I had other business to look after, and there seemed more than
enough o' fightin' men, I left them, and went my way. Two days after, I
had occasion to go back to the same place, an' when I comed in sight o'
the camp, I guess there was a mighty stir.

"`Wot's to do?' says I to a miner in a hole, who wos diggin' away for
gold, and carin' nothin' about it.

"`Only scraggin' an Injun,' he said, lookin' up.

"`Oh,' says I, `I'll go and see.'

"So off I sot, and there wos a crowd o' about two hundred miners round a
tree; and, jest as I come up, they wos puttin' the rope round the neck
of a poor wretch of an old grey-haired red-skin, whose limbs trembled so
that they wos scarce able to hold him up.

"`Heave away now, Bill,' cried the man as tied the noose.

"But somethin' was wrong with the hitch o' the rope round the branch o'
the tree, an' it wouldn't draw, and some time wos spent in puttin' it
right. I felt sorter sorry for the old man, for his grave face was bold
enough, and age more than fear had to do with the tremblin' o' his legs.
Before they got it right again, my eye fell on a small band o'
red-skins, who were lookin' quietly on; and foremost among them the very
blackguard as shot the man in the galley. I knew him at once by his
ugly face. Without sayin' a word, I steps for'ard to the old Injun, and
takes the noose off his neck.

"`Halloo!' cried a dozen men, jumpin' at me.