firm in my
demand that the men who killed the woman must be given up and my
six-shooter returned. His reply was he did not think it could be done,
but he would consult his people. After the consultation, he returned
and notified me that fifteen would surrender and the six-shooter
would be restored, and further, that we could kill the sixteenth man,
since the tribe wished to get rid of him anyhow, adding that he was a
bad Indian, whose bullet no doubt had given the woman her death
wound. He said that if I assented to this arrangement, he would
require all of his people except the objectionable man to run to the
right of his line at a preconcerted signal. The bad Indian would be
ordered to stand fast on the extreme left, and we could open fire on
him as his comrades fell away to the right. I agreed to the
proposition, and gave Joe fifteen minutes to execute his part of it.
We then returned to our respective forces, and a few minutes later
the fifteen ran to the right flank as agreed upon, and we opened fire
on the one Indian left standing alone, bringing him down in his
tracks severely wounded by a shot through the shoulder.

While all this was going on, the other bands of the reservation,
several thousand strong, had occupied the surrounding hills for the
purpose of witnessing the fight, for as the Rogue Rivers had been
bragging for some time that they could whip the soldiers, these other
Indians had come out to see it done. The result, however,
disappointed the spectators, and the Rogue Rivers naturally lost
caste. The fifteen men now came in and laid down their arms
(including my six-shooter) in front of us as agreed, but I compelled
them to take the surrendered guns up again and carry them to the
post, where they were deposited in the block-house for future
security. The prisoners were ironed with ball and chain, and made to
work at the post until their rebellious spirit was broken; and the
wounded man was correspondingly punished after he had fully
recovered. An investigation as to why this man had been selected as
the offering by which Joe and his companions expected to gain
immunity, showed that the fellow was really a most worthless
character, whose death even would have been a benefit to the tribe.
Thus it seemed that they had two purposes in view--the one to
propitiate me and get good terms, the other to rid themselves of a
vagabond member of the tribe.

The punishment of these sixteen Indians by bal