102 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 



giants, with whom no communication had ever been 

 held by mortal man ; and but for the casual wafting to 

 the shores of the lake of logs of gigantic trees, cut by 

 axes of extraordinary size, the world would never have 

 known that such a people existed. They were, more- 

 over, white as themselves, and lived upon corn and fruits, 

 and rode on elephants, &c. 



Whilst following a small creek at the south-west 

 extremity of the lake, they came upon a band of miser- 

 able Indians, who, from the fact of their subsisting 

 chiefly on roots, are called the Diggers. At first sight 

 of the whites they immediately fled from their wretched 

 huts, and made towards the mountains ; but one of the 

 trappers, galloping up on his horse, cut off their retreat, 

 and drove them like sheep before him back to their 

 village. A few of these wretched creatures came into 

 camp at sundown, and were regaled with such meat as 

 the larder afforded. They appeared to have no other 

 food in their village but bags of dried ants and their 

 larvae, and a few roots of the yampah. Their huts were 

 constructed of a few bushes of greasewood, piled up as 

 a sort of breakwind, in which they huddled in their 

 filthy skins. During the night, they crawled up to the 

 camp and stole two of the horses, and the next morn- 

 ing not a sign of them was visible. Now La Bonte wit- 

 nessed a case of mountain law, and the practical effects 

 of the "lex talionis" of the Far West. 



The trail of the runaway Diggers bore to the north- 

 west, or along the skirt of a barren waterless desert, 

 which stretches far away from the southern shores of 



