The English spell the name of this river with an additional letter, as if after the name of an eminent stateman. But I think the above is right, as the name is certainly derived from the deep and dangerous pits that once made this whole vast region here Pit River Valley very dangerous ground for strangers. These pits, dug in trails and passes by squaws who carried the dirt away in baskets, were from ten to twenty feet deep, jug-shaped and covered with twigs and reeds and leaves. At the bottom lay sharpened elk and deer antlers, and sometimes sharpened flints and spears, pointed up to receive the victim. Even if one was not disembowelled on first falling into the pit, the ugly shape of it made it not only impossible for man but for even the most savage and supple wild beast to climb again to the light; and darkness and a lingering death were the inevitable end. These pits of course made the land a terror, and it was not until as late as 1856 that this most lovely valley in all California was fairly possessed by settlers. Once in possession, the white man of course soon found out the secret pits, and they gradually filled up as they fell into disuse. Yet in the Pit River war, which follwed the massacre, I know that one man and several horses were disembowelled by these dreaded pits; for after the Indians again got possession they attempted to restore this curious means of defence against invasion.
The buds were beginning to swell and birds to sing in the sunniest places about my Indian camp on the southern slope of Mount Shasta as the news came of the Pit River massacre. I was the only white person left in all the country round. And I knew at once that I would be accused of having advised and directed the massacre. For all knew that I sympathized with the Indians. I cannot enter into detail to show how the Indians had been wronged; how they had been driven to this; how their men had been shot down for no other offence than that of having wives which the gold hunters and gamblers desired; how that, after one year of this bloody work, they found themselves starving and dying and desperate; how they rose up and swept away every white man into eternity, and fed their little ones on the thousand cattle. But I take the responsibility of saying that the Indians were entirely in the right. Politic it was not, it meant their final annihilation. But they died finally not without some revenge. Nor will I trouble myself with any detailed denial of complicity in the massacre. If I had had any part in it at all, I certainly should not hesitate to say so frankly. For after a quarter of a century, looking at the matter with maturer sense, and from all sides and in all lights, I do not see how the Indians could have done anything else and retain a bit of self-respect. And I do not see how the white men could have expected anything else in the end. The rape of the .Sabines was as nothing compared to the ruthless way m which these men had seized upon the handsomest Indian women of the valley and murdered their fathers, brothers, husbands, who dared protest or even ventured to beg about their doors as the winter went past, while they housed in comfort in the snowy valley and fed their fattened herds in half a dozen great corrals made of ricks of hay. This hay was fired simultaneously m the half-dozen barracks scattered over the valley, generally by the hand of a captive squaw; and as the white men fled out over the snow they were shot down by the Indians. And this is the story of the massacre as it came to me at my camp early in the spring of 1857. Two white men only had escaped. They had not been pursued; but they were known to be at that time trying to make their way through the snow to Yreka, three days' travel away to the north-west. As I knew their line of retreat would be not far from my camp, I had bonfires set on a cliff of rocks overlooking the country, in hope that they might be guided to my camp and be fed. But they made their way to Yreka without finding me, and there gave the world the first news of the destruction of the settlement. Of course I did not know of their final escape, but thinking to give the first information of the deplorable event, and desiring to be quite certain of my report, I set out at once for Pit River Valley, sixty miles distant, and far below my camp on the spurs of Mount Shasta.
Blackbeard, the chief of the tribe I had cast my fortunes with, did not say much. He advised me, however, to keep away and out of the whole affair. But I had an image all the time of those two men struggling through the snow in death, and terror ringing in their ears, and I wanted to meet and help them. And then we had been shut up in camp so long, were so full of rest, that restraint was hard to bear. I resolved, however, to go no nearer than the great bald mountain overlooking the valley, from which I could see with my glass and be able to say positively whether or not the last hay fort had been burned. My two favorite young Indians were permitted to go with me. But the chief told me that he should lead his people still deeper into the fastness of Mount Shasta, try to keep his young men from taking sides in the coming war, and wait to see what might happen. I do not think the old chief doubted my devotion to him or questioned the sincerity of my cherished purpose of establishing my Indian republic, or sort of Indian territory, with Mount Shasta for its geographical centre and he for its head chief. But I think he gravely doubted my judgement, as well he might at that time, and so he did not give me his confidence at all. In fact, so far from trusting me, he deceived me. For I could see busy preparation for battle going on all about me. The morning I set out with my two young followers, with the promise to go no farther than the great bald mountain, overlooking the valley, I missed several of our best warriors from the camp. They had, like Job's war-horse, "sniffed the battle from afar," and had gone like true gentlemen to champion their color and their kind, and to battle for the right, as it was given them to see the right, and die!
After such a swift day's run over the snow as seems almost incredible, we stood in the sunset on the summit of the bald mountain overlooking Pit River Valley. No smoke curled any more against the cold blue sky that rounded above the vast valley. The stillness of death hung over it. Where the great hay-ricks had been drawn around the herds of cattle m secure corrals, with the houses in the centre, only black spots were to be seen. The snow had disappeared from the valley, and instead of the weary and eternal white that had met my eyes everywhere for so many months, I witnessed the welcome green of spring spread like a carpet beneath me. I could almost smell the flowers. Far beyond and across the two great rivers that cleave the glorious valley I could see a boundless field of blue. This was the camas blossom. This flower sweeps over and purples all Oregon in the early spring. Civilization has laid hand on it, named it the hyacinth, and .grows it in single stems from.bulbs carefully kept in windows and warm places m the spring-time.
How I wanted to go down and gather a handful of flowers! What gift would be so precious for some one waiting for my return back in the camp of snow and woods? I know this sentence and this sentiment read absurdly,, and my only excuse for it is its absolute truth. I knew quite well that away down there in each of those dark spots dead men lay unburied, and that the beautiful valley before me, another Eden from which man had been newly expelled, was soon to be the scene of bloody war; that my own life was in peril from both races and in all places now; and yet all this, all these perils were as nothing compared to my desire, my determination to have a handful of flowers.
As we stood there the stars came out they came out shyly, timidly, as on tiptoe. I saw them come out while it was yet day, twinkle a bit and then go back, as if afraid. By and by they trooped out m armies, and all heaven was ablaze with the biggest stars this side of Syria. They stood out above the gleaming snow-peaks about us so near and clear that you might almost fancy you heard them clink against their fronts of icy helmets. The stillness was like a song, an immortal melody. We listened, we leaned and listened; the stars leaned out of heaven listening. No sound of life. No sound of strife now. Eden was as still on the day before the fashioning of man. Should I turn back as I promised? Perhaps if I had not promised so certainly I had not so madly resolved to see more. Yet I could have resisted all the temptation to slide down that steep mountain of snow and see and know all, had it not been for the flowers. Oh, the mad glory of going down there and grasping the summer in my hand and taking her back to winter in the wilderness!
Pretty soon Indian camp-fires began to gleam about the green and wooded girdle of the valley. Fate set one of these camp-fires almost at our feet. Seven miles distant and one mile perpendicular! We looked each other in the face as we stood there on the starlit summit of snow and saw the camp-fire gleam through the green pine tops at our feet. That light down there was death to any moth that might flutter too closely about it. But it was irresistible. And then the flowers!
I tightened my belt. The Indians did the same. Then with but a single word we bounded down that steep mountain of snow with a wild and savage delight that I defy any mortal to feel inside the pale of civilization. That night was our friend. With her protecting arms about us, her mantle shutting us in from the sight of unfriendly eyes, we would look in upon the Indian camp, we would hear their speeches about the council fire, see their wild, splendid gestures! Ah, we would have something to tell when we returned. And then the flowers!
I dare not say how soon we reached that camp, nor have I time to enter into detail. What narrow escapes of d!scovery as we lay on our bellies under the sweet-smelling pines and listened to the stirring eloquence of the nearly naked warriors. How the blood tingles at such times! What a spice peril like this gives to life!
Soon the feasting began. Then the tempting smell of roasted beef was too much for our hungry stomachs to bear longer, and as we could hear nothing more and could really do nothing at all, we passed on around the camp and went still on till we came to the level valley and the warm naked earth with flowers at her breast and girdle.
I snatched these flowers from the hand of nature that reached them up from the south, and then, with a little detour where we saw a nude dead man a mute, unchallenged witness of the massacre--we began, weak and hungry, to climb the mountain on our return.
Day dashed in upon us like troopers long before we knew it. We had forgotten the stars in the dial-plate above in the intense excitement before us, and before we had quite left the edge of the open valley we were in the full light.
Suddenly we met two old women. They were attached to an outpost which we had passed in the night, and were on their way to the camp we had been spying out. We took them with us, and ran up the hills as fast as our weak and worn legs would carry us. When quite in the woods and well up the mountain-side, the Indians wanted to kill the women, fearing that they might escape and give the alarm. I protested. The old women listened and understood all that was said. They of course took sides with me. The young Indians seemed very much set on this notion of theirs, and finally, odd as it may seem, we deliberately sat down there on the steep and snowy mountain-side and argued the thing quite a while, the old women taking a very active part in the argument, as you may well believe.
Finally one of them broke away and escaped. Then of course we set the other loose and dashed ahead with all the strength that desperation could lend us. A hundred swift fellows would be at our heels in an hour, we knew right well.
As we climbed one hill, with a great hollow behind us, we could see the trees alive on the ridge behind us and across the steep, deep hollow. But they were too far away to shoot at us yet. One more hill before us! As we finally struggled to the summit of the old bald mountain, where we had stood in the twilight of the day before, I being literally borne and dragged between my two companions, we saw the base of the hill black with savages. And I could scarcely stand! It was decided to descend the mountain to the left and cross the McCloud. The Indians tore off some tough cedar bark from a dead trunk, tied me in this hollowed cradle, and so dragging me darted down the hill toward the McCloud River on a swift run. Once safely near the river we began to feel relieved. On the bluff above the river they took me out, stood me between them and rushed down the steep wooded hill to the water's edge. The enemy stopped on the steep bluffs above and overlooking the river. They were within pistol-shot behind the trees scattered about the brow of the hill. But they knew too much to follow us into the thicket. No, they preferred to pick us off at their leisure as we attempted to swim the river.
But swim that river, swift and strong and cold as death, I could not. So my two Indian friends rolled a light dry log into the water as we lay close under the bank hidden from the enemy above, who were waiting to see us plunge into the stream before us. I lay down on this log, one of the Indians taking charge of my arms. Then they came into the water with me. They pushed the log down the river under the steep bank, unseen by those on the hill, and both clung to it as the swift current bore us away. This was our escape! Before the Indians on the bluff suspected it, we were a mile away down the river and climbing the bank on the other side. They did not follow us further. The two brave fellows left me and went on for help when certain we were not followed. And so I finally reached camp, barely alive, and with no sign of summer or sweet flowers in my feeble hand.