turbulent, and I was surprised to be told that drunkenness was rare among
them.

After secret deliberations among the mean whites, incited by no one knows
who, and headed by the demagogues who are never found wanting when dirty
work is to be done, a petition was sent to the State Superintendent of
Indian Affairs at San Francisco for the removal of the Indians; but the
more decent people immediately prepared and sent up a counter-petition,
stating the whole case. This was in the spring of 1872.

I do not know the State Indian agent, but I am told that he hesitated, did
not act, and, in May of the same year, a mob, without authority from him
or from any body else, without notice to the Indians, and without even
giving these poor creatures time to gather up their household goods or to
arrange their little affairs, drove them out of their houses, and sixty
miles, over a cruel road, to the reservation.

[Illustration: CHISTOOK WOMAN AND CHILD.]

Against this act of lawless violence toward peaceable and self-supporting
men and women, who are, I notice, officially called "the nation's
unfortunate wards," the proper officer of the United States Government,
the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, did not protest, and for it no one
has ever been punished.

But this was not all. The Indians being thus driven out, a meeting was
called, at which it was announced that if they dared to return they would
be killed; and, in fact, three unfortunates, who ventured back after some
months to see their old homes, were shot down in cold blood; and, though
the men are known who did this, for it no one has ever been punished.