f amusement were open to him. Wherever he went he was pointed
out as the man to whom California was under the greatest obligations.
Still he retained his modesty and integrity unsullied. Soon after his
return to Razado, he received the unexpected and very gratifying
intelligence, that he had been appointed by the United States Government,
Indian Agent.

The duties of this difficult and responsible office he performed with
remarkable wisdom and success. Whenever his counsel was followed, it was
attended with the desired results. Whenever it was rejected disaster was
sure to ensue. His knowledge of Indian customs was such, that more than
once he presented himself entirely alone at the council fire of
exasperated warriors; and urged upon them peace. On one of these occasions
he learned that an angry band of Apache warriors were encamped among the
mountains, but about fifty miles from his home. He knew the chiefs. He was
familiar with their language. Though he knew that they were in a state of
great exasperation, and that they were preparing to enter upon the
war-path, he mounted his horse and rode thither, without even an
attendant. The chiefs received him with sullen looks; but they listened
patiently to his speech.

"The course you are pursuing," said he, "will lead to your inevitable and
total destruction. Your tribe will be exterminated. Your Great Father has
thousands upon thousands of soldiers. He can easily replace those who fall
in battle. It is not so with you. When your warriors are killed, you have
no others to place in their moccasins. You must wait for the children to
grow up.

"Your Great Father loves his children. He wishes to give you rich
presents. I am his servant to bring those presents to you. We wish to live
in peace, that we may help one another."

This conciliatory speech softened their hearts for a time, and they all,
with seeming cordiality, came forward and professed friendship. The great
difficulty, in our intercourse with the Indians, has been that the
wilderness has been filled with miserable vagabonds, who were ever
perpetrating innumerable outrages, robbing them, and treating them in all
respects, in the most shameless manner. Even civilized men, in war, will
often retaliate, by punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty.
It is not strange that untutored Indians, having received atrocious wrongs
from one band of white men, should wreak their vengeance on the next band
whom they c