just at break of day the old man and his son took their guns and started out again to hunt for their horses, and the mother and daughter made a fire and cooked breakfast.  The sun was about an hour high, and they were sitting near the fire waiting for the men to come back when they heard the report of a gun; they thought the men were coming back and were shooting some game.  They had no idea there was an Indian near them.  In the course of a half an hour they heard the second shot, and in a few minutes the Indians were upon them, and they knew that the men were both dead, because the Indians had both of their guns and were holding them up and yelling and dancing with fiendish glee.  The Indians grabbed them and tied their hands behind them and then they tore down their tent, took the wagon cover off and everything out of the wagon that they could carry off.

“The bucks did the things up in bundles, and the squaws packed them on their backs, and they were expecting every minute to be killed.  After the squaws had gone the bucks ate everything they could find that was cooked, and the squaws that you found us with made us go with them to the north end of the lake and there they camped that night.  They tied us with our backs to a little tree; we could not lay down and what little sleep we got we took sitting up; we had not had a bit of breakfast that morning when the Indians came upon us; it was all ready, and we were waiting for our men folks to come back, and we have had nothing since, but a little piece of broiled fish with no salt on it.”

Until now I had not said anything about our finding the dead bodies of their men, I thought it better to tell them now rather than wait until we reached camp, as I thought the shock would be less when they came to see the condition they were in.

Before I had finished telling the condition of the bodies when we found them, I was afraid the young lady would faint, she seemed to take the horrid news much harder than her mother did.

When we got to camp we found that Bridger had been there some two hours ahead of us and had men digging the graves and others tearing up the wagon box to make coffins to bury the bodies in.

We took the women to a family they were acquainted with and left them in their care.  After they had been given something to eat they went where the bodies lay and looked at them, and with sobs of bitter grief bent over them; which made my heart ache in sympathy for them in their loneliness.

The next morning we laid them away into their lonely graves in as decent a manner as we could, and in sadness left them.

Through the influence of Jim Bridger arrangements were made with two families to take these two ladies with them to California.  Just before noon Jim came to me and said, “We will stay here until tomorrow morning; I would like you to take four or five men who have good horses and go around the north end of the lake and find out, if you can, if the Piutes are gathering together in a large band.  It is about the time of year for the Piutes to leave this part of the country, but if they are gathering in a large band they are bent on giving us trouble, and we will have to make preparations to defend our selves.  In three days more if we have good luck we shall be out of the hostile Indian country.”