Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/67

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Recollections of B. F. Bonney 51 and had asked God to take care of her. One of the young men in charge of the horses felt so badly about leaving her, he went back and put a bullet through her head and put her out of her misery. "A few days later we came to an Indian camp. The Indians were subsisting on dried acorns and crickets. The crickets were very large. The way they prepared them was to catch the crickets, pull off their legs so they could not hop away, pile them in the sun and let them dry, then mix them with the acorns, put them all together in a stone mortar and make a sort of bread out of them. The Indians gave us some of this black bread which looked like fruit cake but had a different taste. Some of we children ate it, while others were rather squeamish about it and did not care for it. "That evening an Indian came to camp bringing an Indian boy about twelve years old. Allan Sanders traded a Pinto pony for the boy. He cut the Indian boy's long hair, bought him clothing from one of the other members of the party, and named the boy Columbus. The first night Columbus was very unhappy, but after Sanders had given him a sound thrashing he seemed more con- tented. He reached Oregon safely but a few years later died from the measles. "A few days' travel northward from where Sanders had bought Columbus, we were attacked by the Indians. When night had fallen our party moved back into the brush about 50 yards from where we had camped. The men put the packs in a circle to protect the women and children. The nine men who had guns crept out to the bank of the stream where they believed the Indians would cross. When everything was still the Indians started to cross the stream. Our men gave them a volley and the other men, who had cut clubs, with a loud yell splashed into the stream after the Indians, and the Indians dis- appeared. The next morning the men found plenty of