SALMON HATCHING ON m'cLOUD RIVER, CALIFORNIA, 1878.747 



same time we read in the i)apers tliat the Pit Eiver Indians had been 

 making" hostile demonstrations on their river. Our McClond Eiver In- 

 dians, wlio by this time had heard of the alarm at Copper City, were 

 very much excited. We wrote back to the superintendent that we thought 

 there was nothing in it, and that there was no danger. The next morn- 

 ing, however, an Indian squaw told us that the Yreka and Ui)per Sac- 

 ramento Indians were coming down to the McCloud to kill the McCloud 

 Indians and what white men there were on the river, meaning ourselves 

 at the fishery. We heard farther that Outlaw Dick, who murdered 

 George Crooks here in 1873, and Captain Alexander, an Indian of very 

 warlike disposition, had urged the northern Indians at a recent council 

 to make a descent upon the McCloud and "clean out," as they expressed 

 it, all the white men and McCloud Indians on the river. To add to the 

 excitement, a Piute chief had visited our Indians the past week to stir 

 them up to make war on the whites. 



Three days after, a McCloud Indian came down in hot haste from Alex- 

 ander's camp and told our Indians that Alexander had gone north to "call" 

 his Indians, and that they would be down next month to make war on 

 the McClouds. Some of our Indians were very much alarmed, and for 

 several days a good deal dejected over this news, and they told us stories 

 of ancient fights that they had had with the northern Indians, and how 

 the Modocs and Yreka Indians had made war on them and burned their 

 children and carried off their squaws. All this occurred just at the time 

 when the SanFrancisco papers were full of the murders and depredations 

 of the Oregon Indians, and we began to think that there might be some- 

 thing serious in the excitement in our neighborhood. At all events, as 

 we had only one rifle at the fishery I thought it prudent to be at least 

 better armed, and accordiugly telegraphed for arms and ammunition. 

 The excitement, however, gradually died away. The Piute chief re- 

 turned to his own tribe ; the Oregon Indians began to surrender and 

 come in to deliver themselves up to the soldiers ; the McCloud Indians 

 recovered from their alarm, and about three weeks after the first excite- 

 ment they informed me that Captain Alexander and his Indians had 

 changed their minds and were not coming. This was the end of our In- 

 dian scare, and after this we thought nothing more about it. We might 

 not have been in any danger whatever. It is very likely that we were not, 

 and yet when a few white men are in an Indian country where the In- 

 dians outnumber them ten to one, as in our case, their very helplessness 

 creates a feeling of uneasiness if there is only the slightest susiiicion of 

 danger. We did not know that we were in great danger, but we knew 

 that if we were, with but one rifle among us, we were perfectly i^owerless 

 to avert it ; and that reflection was an unpleasant one in itself. 



Hot weather. — Between the 8th and 14th of August, inclusive, we 

 had a hot week, during which the heat was so continuous and excessive 

 that I think it is worth mentioning. The temperature on those days at 

 3 o'clock iQ the shade was as follows : August 8, 102° ; August 9, 108°; 



