The Pit River Indians were very hostile at that time, and for many succeeding years their treachery and cruelty brought misfortune and misery to the white settlers who ventured their lives in search of home and fortune in the wild and isolated section over which these savages roamed.  Not long after Williamson’s party passed through their country, the Government was compelled to send into it a considerable force for the purpose of keeping them under control.  The outcome of this was a severe fight—­resulting in the loss of a good many lives—­between the hostiles and a party of our troops under Lieutenant George Crook.  It finally ended in the establishment of a military post in the vicinity of the battle-ground, for the permanent occupation of the country.

A great load was lifted from my heart when I found myself so near Williamson’s camp, which I joined August 4, 1855, receiving a warm welcome from the officers.  During the afternoon I relieved Lieutenant Hood of the command of the personal escort, and he was ordered to return, with twelve of the mounted men, over the trail I had followed.  I pointed out to him on the map the spot where he would find the two men left on the roadside, and he was directed to take them into Fort Reading.  They were found without difficulty, and carried in to the post.  The sick man—­Duryea—­whom I had expected never to see again, afterward became the hospital steward at Fort Yamhill, Oregon, when I was stationed there.

The Indians that I had passed at the ford came to the bluff above the camp, and arranging themselves in a squatting posture, looked down upon Williamson’s party with longing eyes, in expectation of a feast.  They were a pitiable lot, almost naked, hungry and cadaverous.  Indians are always hungry, but these poor creatures were particularly so, as their usual supply of food had grown very scarce from one cause and another.

In prosperity they mainly subsisted on fish, or game killed with the bow and arrow.  When these sources failed they lived on grasshoppers, and at this season the grasshopper was their principal food.  In former years salmon were very abundant in the streams of the Sacramento Valley, and every fall they took great quantities of these fish and dried them for winter use, but alluvial mining had of late years defiled the water of the different streams and driven the fish out.  On this account the usual supply of salmon was very limited.  They got some trout high up on the rivers, above the sluices and rockers of the miners, but this was a precarious source from which to derive food, as their means of taking the trout were very primitive.  They had neither hooks nor lines, but depended entirely on a contrivance made from long, slender branches of willow, which grew on the banks of most of the streams.  One of these branches would be cut, and after sharpening the butt-end to a point, split a certain distance, and by a wedge the prongs divided sufficiently to admit