Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/488

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476
SOME INDIAN EPISODES.

friend H. F. Miller, just when and how there were no witnesses to relate. Living within seventy-five yards of Miller's house was a family named Brotherton, three men of which were killed. The remainder of the family would have shared the same fate but for the courage of Mrs Brotherton, who defended her house and children until relief arrived, three days after the slaughter of her husband and sons.

The account Mrs Botherton gave when rescued was, that on Saturday, the 30th of November, between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, she saw at some distance approaching the house, eight Indian men and eight women, who had the horses belonging to her husband. They surrounded the house of John Shroeder, in sight of her own, and shot Shroeder, who was on horseback, and who tried to escape by running his horse, but was * overtaken and killed. Joseph Brotherton, fifteen years of age, was in company with Shroeder, but being on foot, and only a boy, they gave all their attention to the man on horseback. Mrs Brotherton seeing her son running toward the house, went out to meet him with a revolver. A younger boy, Louis, fearing for his mother, called her back and ran after her, but she ordered him back to the house to get his Henry rifle, telling him to elevate the sight 800 yards, and fire at the Indians. He obeyed—his little sister wiping and handling the cartridges. In this manner the mother was protected by one son, while she rescued another. She returned safely to the house and the door was closed and fastened. The Indians then rode past, half a mile, to the tules, where they left their horses, and came back on foot, keeping Miller's house between them and the Henry rifle. Entering Miller's house, they pillaged it, having already killed him. Under Mrs Brotherton's directions, there was a port hole bored on the side of her house toward Miller's. As the auger came through the Indians saw it, and fired, but without hitting anyone. The boy at the