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roasted as to be edible, and some melted butter, on which they made a meal, for by this time they were all very hungry, having had but little breakfast.

Having satisfied their hunger they were looking about their desolated home when they came suddenly upon their mother, terribly wounded but still living. She recognized them, and gently chided the older boy for lingering so long about the place. She told him, as Nelson had done, to go to Thomas' place with the other children, for she could not live, and if the Indians should return they would probably murder them. With a heavy heart the boy turned away and never saw his mother again. All that afternoon he trudged on through the woods, leading one tired child and carrying the other. When he reached Thomas' place it was deserted. The next house beyond was also abandoned. Both had been pillaged.

The children now seemed to be alone in the world, and they wandered on in utter hopelessness. They were very tired, and also hungry; there was no place to rest, they could find nothing to eat, and the older boy was tormented by a continual fear that the Indians would yet find and murder them. Suddenly he saw an Indian some distance ahead of him on the trail, and turning quickly aside he hid his brother and sister under some bushes, and then returned to investigate. He hoped, he said long afterward, that, if he was killed, his brother and sister would somehow be rescued. The Indian proved to be an old acquaintance, and still disposed to be friendly. He also was afraid of the hostiles, but said he would take the children to his hut and, after the moon was up, would try and take them in his boat to Seattle. This he did during the night, by the help of another Indian, and put them safely

on board the sloop-of-war Decatur, which was then lying in the harbor.*

Other settlers living in the neighborhood were warned in time, or took the alarm and fled to Seattle, arriving there on the evening of the 28th. The citizens were immediately aroused, and by 11 o'clock on the following morning Captain C. C. Hewitt, with a company of forty men, and four friendly Indians, were on their way to the scene of the massacre. They were two days in reaching it, as there were almost no roads through which such a party of men, with their supplies and necessary camp outfit, could be marched with celerity. All the cabins of the settlers along the route had been abandoned, and most of them had been pillaged. Some had been burned.

The houses and most of the other buildings belonging to the Jones and King families were in ashes. The partially burned body of Mr. Jones was found in the ruins of his house. A short distance away was the body of his wife, and, at a greater distance but in the opposite direction, that of Cooper. The buildings belonging to the King family had also been. burned, and the bodies of King and his wife were found near by, partially eaten by animals. Brannan's house bore evidence of a terrific struggle. His own body, terribly mutilated, lay on the floor, which was much stained with blood. Both his hands were lacerated, as if he had seized the knife with which he had been stabbed, and made a desperate effort to wrench it away from his assailant. His arms and legs were badly cut, and Captain Hewitt says "there were as many as fifteen stabs in his back, mostly a little below the left

* From an account of the massacre written by Dr. John I. King, of Martel, O., who was the oldest of these three children. See Meeker's "Pioneer Reminiscences," p. 292.

shoulder." He had evidently been assailed by more than one Indian, and although unarmed, had made a brave fight for his own life and that of his wife and infant child. The bodies of the latter were not found until after a long search, when they were discovered in the well. Mrs. Brannan had been stabbed through the back, while running from the house with her undressed infant in her arms, and then thrown headlong into the well. The body of the child, which was about ten months old, showed no wounds; it had been drowned, as it was found beneath its mother.

All the bodies-among them being that of one man who was not identified, and whose name has never been learned— were buried as well as circumstances would permit, and such effort was made as was possible to discover who the murderers were and apprehend or punish them, but without much success. A black man was discovered in the neighborhood, who reported having seen five Indians, some of whom he knew, who had told him that there had been as many as one hundred and fifty others in the woods near Hewitt's camp the night before. It was subsequently reported, and to a considerable extent believed, that a part of these murderers were Klikitats from beyond the mountains, and part belonged to Nelson's band of White River Indians. There is some reason to believe that Leschi was in the neighborhood when these murders were committed, but, if this was so, it was never proven.

One child, a boy about four or five years of age, belonging to the King family, was carried away by the Indians, and held in captivity for about five months, when he was delivered to one of the settlers' families by Leschi. During his captivity the child had learned to speak the Indian language with some fluency, and had partly forgotten his own.

News of this massacre spread rapidly through the settlements, and intensified the alarm of the settlers, many of whom had not yet left their claims. It was quickly followed by other reports, that if less shocking were scarcely less alarming.

On the day following that on which Maloney had stopped to rest his animals, after crossing the summit of the Cascades, he was overtaken by a messenger from Fort Steilacoom with the information that Rains was not yet ready to move from the Dalles, and would not be for some days. It was probable therefore that, if he advanced farther, he would have to meet the whole body of Indians, then supposed to number two or three thousand, and that, if attacked by such a force, he would not be able to hold out until Rains could relieve him. He had neither provisions nor ammunition sufficient for a long siege, and was without means to procure a fresh supply. If he went forward, therefore, it would be to almost certain destruction. Moreover the messenger who brought the dispatch brought also news that the northern Indians were arriving in the Sound in considerable numbers, and that the home tribes were showing signs of uneasiness. If they should fall upon his rear, or interfere with his communications, his case would be hopeless. He therefore determined to recross the mountains to a point where grass could be obtained for his animals, and there was no such place nearer than that where Slaughter had fixed his camp when he had fallen back only a few days earlier. This resolution was wisely taken, for, had his return been delayed for even a day, Eaton's small force would probably have been annihilated, and his assailants, emboldened by such a success, would have found their numbers greatly increased, and the defenseless settlers, who still remained in their homes in the Puyallup

and other valleys, would have been attacked and slaughtered without mercy.

Before leaving his camp he sent off a dispatch to Governor Mason, and one to Rains by way of Steilacoom, notifying them of his retreat. These letters were carried by William Tidd, a carpenter who lived at Steilacoom, the intrepid rider who had crossed the mountains alone, to bring him Rains' dispatch. On his return he was accompanied by A. Benton Moses, a brother of the ex-collector of customs, Joseph Miles, George R. Bright, Dr. M. P. Burns, A. B. Rabbeson and John Bradley. This party arrived at the crossing of White River near Connell's Prairie early in the afternoon of Wednesday, October 31st, and were surprised to find Leschi and a large camp of Indians there. The Indians were equally surprised to see them, as they were not looking for white people from that direction. No hostile demonstrations were made on either side, and the little party passed on toward the fatal spot where McAllister and Connell had been killed only four days earlier, and where their mutilated bodies still remained, though of this they were wholly ignorant. They had gone but a short distance,* when they were fired upon from an ambuscade, as McAllister and Connell had been, near the same place. Miles was instantly killed and Moses mortally wounded. The rest of the party escaped without injury.

On the morning of the preceding day-Tuesday, October 30th-Lieutenant John Nugen, at Fort Steilacoom, had received a message from Captain Sterrett of the Decatur, informing him of the massacre in the White River Valley.

* The ground was subsequently measured by a surveyor and the distance ascertained to be 69 chains, or 272 rods, considerably less than half a mile.

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