ost
was informed of what had happened and at once proceeded to restore the
missing money. He called his son to him, a boy twenty years of age,
and after threatening a good deal, he made the lad take his choice
between owning the theft or submitting to the risk of being discovered
by a search of his person for the missing coins. This had the desired
effect, and at once the stolen property was returned to its rightful
owner.

Both of these facts are simple, and perhaps, uninteresting; but they
serve to exhibit a characteristic of the lower classes of Mexicans.
Doubtless, such paltry thieving is the result of a want of animal
courage, easily discernible by the close observer of the Mexican race.
Of course there are many exceptions to this statement.

The white men interested in the council had their hands full in
their endeavors to smooth over this affair, for the Indians were
much dissatisfied with such treatment. At first they demanded that
reparation should be made them by their agents giving them a certain
number of horses. The Superintendent explained to them that he had not
the power to do this, but he assured them that the murderers should
be arrested and dealt with according to law. The Indians willingly
received this promise, but seemed to feel, as finally was the fact,
that they were doomed to be disappointed as far as the punishment was
concerned. It afterwards happened that only one of the murderers was
apprehended, and in a very short time after he was locked up as a
prisoner, he succeeded in making his escape and was never retaken.
This was all that was ever done by those in authority to render the
justice that had been agreed upon and which was richly due to the
Indians. After quitting the council, and while on their way back to
their hunting-ground, the small pox broke out among the red men, and
carried off, in its ravages, the leading men of this band of Muache
Utahs. On the first appearance of this trouble, the Indians held a
council among themselves, and decided that the Superintendent was the
cause of the pestilence that had visited them. They, also, decided
that he had collected them together in order thus to injure them,
and to further his designs he had presented, to each of their
distinguished warriors, a blanket-coat. They found that nearly every
Indian who had accepted and worn this article, had died.

It so happened that the writer, several years after these events
occurred, visited the camp