SAI.MON HATCHING ON m'cLOUD EIVER, CALIFORNIA, 1878. 745 



demijohns of whisky, which they had distributed indiscriminately among 

 the Indians. The residt was such as no one can reaUze who has not 

 been in an Indian country. The Indians were all more or less intoxi- 

 cated, were very noisy and quarrelsome, and were inciting each other 

 to make a descent on the fishery, and, as they exjiressed it, "to sweep 

 it clean with the ground." Our men, in the highest degree indignant at 

 this outrageous villany of the robbers, armed themselves for the occa- 

 sion and determined to give chase to them that very night. They found 

 them about daylight at an Indian lodge, and placing the muzzles of 

 their revolvers close to the robbers' heads, they captured them without 

 resistance. One is now in the State's prison, the evidence against him 

 being conclusive. The other was discharged for want of sufficient proof 

 of his guilt. This fiu'nishes another instance of our insecurity. It is 

 true it resulted in nothing, but had the Indians been sufficiently intoxi- 

 cated or sufficiently bold to make an attack on the fishery that night, 

 they could have carried everything before them. 



On the 21st of June a post-office was established at the fishery, which 

 I named Baird, after Professor Baird, United States Commissioner of 

 Fish and Fisheries. 



During the first week in July an Indian named Chicken Charlie called 

 on me and said his father was going to die soon, and he wanted a coffin 

 made. We made the coffin, and after a while, when they supposed the 

 Indian was dead, they put him in the coffin and proceeded to bury him ; 

 but before they had finished burying him he came to life again, and they 

 took him out and waited a while longer. The next time he really died, 

 and the following day he was buried over again. 



As soon as the dam was completed across the river, the salmon showed 

 signs of being very thick in the river below. On the 11th of July we 

 made a haul with the seine, which confirmed our impressions of the 

 abundance of the salmon, the number taken at this haul being nearly a 

 thousand. About this time the Indians employed at the fishery did 

 some very fine work under water in repairing the rack. We discovered 

 one day that the salmon, by their violent and repeated attacl^s on the 

 dam, had at last forced a passage-way underneath the rack and were 

 escaping, I immediately put three Indians on the break to repair it. 

 The water was very cold and very swift, and it would have been ex- 

 tremely difficult for white men, unless experienced divers, to do the 

 work; but the Indians, diving down to the bottom of the river and 

 bracing their feet against the dam to resist the force of the current, 

 worked with great skill and perfect self-possession, although remaining 

 sometimes a very unpleasantly long time under water. I will add 

 here that. the assistance of the Indians during the work which we have 

 to do in the water is perfectly invaluable. I do not know how we 

 should get along without them, particularly as the snow-water of the 

 McCloud is so cold that white men cannot stay in it any great length of 

 time. The Indians will remain in it till they get so cold that they build 



