them, as among the tribe were his Indian wife and child. They were again induced to return to Coloma, and now in a pitiable condition, Calif ornians injudiciously sent them a large supply of beef and flour a sort of food to which they were unaccustomed, and of which they ate so greedily as to induce a virulent disease, of which fiftytwo died, practically exterminating the tribe.
This was Rocky Mountain men's justice that was thus dealt out in the California mines, and of the same piece as that of the Cayuse war, or that of the general Indian war of 1855-56.
It was rough and terrible, and the Indians were the victims; but the old California system was the real cause. The attempt was made to work the mines upon a system of inequality of proprietors and peons. The Oregonians, accustomed to a system of equality, finding themselves exposed to outlawry, and not protected from the poor savagery of the Indians, struck as they could. It is to be remembered, too, that the secret murder of thirtytwo men, without any attempt at meting out justice, was an enormity that no community should brook. But that it was not mere personal vengeance, but the purpose to establish the system of free labor, and to root out the contract system, or rather the peon system, was shown by the following:
At length Case decided to go up into the mines when affairs were at last settled, and the men were working without trouble or danger; he had fallen in with a certain Major Whiting, an American by birth, who had, however, been living in Mexico, and had even served in the Mexican army against the United States. This Mexican officer was now bringing up from that region a long mule train of provisions and a company of peons whom he had taken from prison at a cost to himself on the average of but $2 each, and had contracted with them to work for him at
