JOHN C. FREMONT. 191 



and hurled swift destruction against their assailants. 

 Many of the latter were slain; and among the 

 corpses was found, on the following day, that of the 

 same Tla-math chief who but a short time before 

 had given Lieutenant Gillespie a salmon in token 

 of amity. "When the morning dawned, Colonel 

 Fremont buried his dead so as best to conceal their 

 remains from violation, and then returned to the 

 rest of his company, carrying the wounded with 

 him. The escape of Fremont from death on this 

 occasion was very narrow; and he would have been 

 slain when he ventured forth to examine the horses, 

 had not the savages deemed it advisable to wait 

 until a more wholesale slaughter could be made of 

 the unconscious and defenceless travellers.* 



Colonel Fremont, in obedience to the instructions 

 conveyed to him by Lieutenant Gillespie, imme- 

 diately returned to California. He arrived in the 

 Valley of the Sacramento in May, 1846, and found 

 the country in an alarming and critical situation. 

 The Americans who then resided there were con- 

 stantly assailed, and many of them had been mur- 

 dered. The public domain was in process of transfer 

 to British subjects, and the territory of California was 



* Vide the author's Life of John C. Fremont, published by Miller, 

 Orton & Co., New York and Auburn, 1846, pp. 25, 26. 



