tively painful. This sudden movement, and the approach of Mr. Walton, created so much confusion that the court ordered the noise to be suppressed, and I advanced into the bar toward the young lawyer who had been assigned for the defense during my absence. He recognized me immediately, and I begged permission of the court to consult a few moments with him before we opened the defense. A few words from Miss Walton had put me in possession of the explanation to Miss Davis's testimony, and I now learned all that Mr. Stevens had proposed to do for his client. He was prepared to make a vigorous defense with no sort of evidence in his favor, but he had gotten up some ingenious plans, which were now entirely useless. I took the case up with confidence, and opened the defense by stating my ability to prove the entire innocence of the prisoner, and promised to astonish the court and jury and crowd in general, but Miss Davis in particular, whom I took occasion to compliment in terms that evidently secured favor from many who heard me. The testimony was brief and clear. Mr. Walton remembered the day and the evening distinctly. He had himself exchanged his own foreign gold that day with Gaston (called Randall in the indictment), and he could identify the pieces though he had not seen them since. "All my gold was of one sort. English sovereigns of the reign of —, and dated 18-. I brought them from London with me." On examination the ten pieces found on the prisoner proved to be the same. The evening before the murder he had left Gaston in his own drawing-room at nine o'clock, with Miss Walton, and he was sure he was there until much later. Then Miss Walton took the stand. It was a splendid sight to see her. The contrast with Bessie Davis was noticed by every one. Bessie was white and dove-like; Miss Walton was dark, radiant, and queenly. Her beauty took the gazers by storm. No one could help loving and idolizing it. The whole court-room hung on the accents of her clear, musical voice, as if it were a superior being that spoke. She seemed in her element too. The embarrassment of Bessie Davis had prepared her for her story, and it was much easier to describe her own experience after listening to that simple and affecting history. As she proceeded the court and jury began to lean toward the prisoner. She told first of all the facts as to his presence with her that night. Then the night previous, and each night for a month. He had never missed an evening since they had been in America. And then she laughed pleasantly, and said that she was sorry to contradict the young lady yonder, but she had a stronger claim on John Gaston than Miss Davis, and she was not disposed to yield it. "He could not have been making love to Miss Davis on those evenings, for the same promises that she says he was making to her, he made to me at those very moments, after dinner, in the twilight, in the drawing-room in -, fifty miles from here." A smile began to steal over all the faces in the room, except that of Bessie Davis, who was looking in bewilderment from the prisoner's box to the witnesses' stand. She was puzzled. She did not think for one instant that the beautiful girl who was testifying told aught but the truth. Her face and voice were too pure and guileless. "I can explain Miss Davis's error. I am sorry it has happened, for she might have been spared the statement which has been drawn from her. Mr. Gaston has a twin brother, so like him that no casual observer can distinguish one from the other. But there is a difference. Mr. Phillips, please ask Miss Davis the color of Mr. Gaston's eyes." It was out of order, but the excitement had become great, and all rules of testimony were forgotten. I asked the question, and Miss Davis replied with a blush that convinced us she had often observed them. "I think they are blue." "Can you not speak more decidedly?" "And Mr. Gaston's yonder could never have been mistaken for blue. They are of the blackest. That is almost the only distinction between the brothers. Miss Davis has known Frederick, not John Gaston, and that Frederick had nothing to do with this murder I am very certain." "Of course he had not," said a voice in the crowd, and the exact copy of the prisoner forced his way into the bar and toward John Gaston. The meeting of the two brothers was a sight worth seeing. Of course the trial was over. And the same might have been said of Bessie Davis, who had nearly fainted when it at length became apparent that her innocent story and confession of the walks under the elm-trees in the gloaming, and all her heart's secret store of love, had, after all, nothing to do with the case, and had been brought out by a mistake. But Miss Walton and both the brothers were at her side, and when a verdict was recorded, under direction of the court, and we went out to the carriages, the crowd greeted us with hearty cheers that seemed significant of their joy. "The scoundrels!" said John Gaston, as he looked out of the carriage window. "Every man of them would rather see me hung than here. They would not have been here if they had supposed there would be an acquittal." So my story is ended. I leave the reader to gather up the ends which I have failed to work in, and fasten them as he pleases. They were married at the same time, and it was one of the pleasantest days in my professional history. For I called it a professional affair altogether, inasmuch as I lost sight of all of them immediately, and had no other acquaintance with any of them than this which I have sketched. I should add, however, that the murderer of | ordered the men to betake themselves forthwith Solomon Davis was discovered many years after- to other quarters. But there was no place to ward in the shape of a peddler, who betrayed which the poor fellows could go. The Coast himself in a drunken frolic, and who was con- Indians are fish-eaters, and can not get a living victed and hanged, to the satisfaction of the by hunting among the mountains; besides, the good people of the county. mountain Indians kill them wherever they catch them. If they were to be killed, it might as well be in one place as another. So they took to threatening the whites, and slaughtering their cattle. The settlers retaliated by killing the greater portion of the tribe; and the miserable survivors came in and surrendered themselves to the soldiers, in order to save their lives-for a while at least. In the mean time the business of mining was ruined, the prosperity of Crescent City was destroyed, and the traders migrated to other quarters. "SER SOLDIERING IN OREGON. ERGEANT JONES, Third Regiment U. S. Artillery," sends us a huge bundle of manuscript, with sundry rough sketches, from the "Camp at the Mouth of Rogue River, Oregon." | It is a portion of his daily journal, written in camp on the top of a bread-box instead of a table; the sketches, which are any thing but artistic productions, having been made with the stump of a pencil about an inch and a quarter long, as the Sergeant tells us. These rough jottings give us an idea of the life of our soldiers in Oregon, more accurate, probably, than we could gain from more pretending sources; and we must introduce the Sergeant to our readers. "Uncle Sam makes a few soldiers go a great ways," he writes, in a desponding mood. This is true in more senses than one. Company B. had just returned to California from a scout up the Columbia River, a thousand miles and more to the north, where they had tramped over snowy mountains and forded icy rivers; and now, before they had done limping, orders came that they must set off for the Gila River, almost a thousand miles to the south, "across a desert plain where it is so hot that one can make the mercury in the thermometer fall by breathing upon the bulb." Uncle Sam made these soldiers, at all events, "go a great way." Just then Indian hostilities broke out on Rogue River, and Company B., with several other companies, among which was the "Third Artillery," were ordered to proceed thither at "That dreadful Rogue River country," exclaims the Sergeant, "away up in Oregon, among bleak forests and wild mountains and wily savages. I wish we had gone to the Gila instead." once. The Indians, naked and without weapons, were encamped on a rock near the city, where they received rations from the Government. The soldiers remained at Crescent City for a few days, in order to drill the fresh recruits. One day, while practicing with the howitzer, a shell burst in front of the Indian camp, and a fragment fell plump among a group of the savages, who were squatted on the ground, engaged in their gambling game, played with bits of stick. They thought that their last hour had come. It was affecting to see how hopelessly they crowded around the officer who had them in charge, crying, "We thought you told us you wouldn't kill us." They could hardly be persuaded that they were not to be massacred on the spot. A detachment of the troops were soon on their march for Rogue River. A portion of the way lay through a forest of huge red-wood trees. "No one," says the Sergeant, "who has not seen them can form any idea of these wonderful forests. The ground is covered with great dripping green ferns upon which no sun has ever shone. Gray, mouldering columns fifty, sixty, seventy feet in circumference, tower up, choking the space above and around. The eye follows these columns for hundreds of feet aloft. Then they divide into great branches, and these again into hundreds and thousands In due time the troops, some hundreds in of lesser limbs, upon the extremities of which number, were packed away, as thickly as books grow millions of minute needle-like leaves-the on a library shelf, on board a little steamer, only green thing in all the structure. I measwhich was to land detachments of them at va-ured some of these trunks, and found them rious posts from San Francisco to Puget's Sound. five-and-twenty feet in diameter, twelve feet The Sergeant jots down a wish that it may not rain for a few days, as most of the men must sleep on deck. above the ground. I counted the rings in a small tree, four feet in diameter, and found about one hundred and eighty; so that these giants must have been growing more than a thousand years." The Third Artillery is dropped at Crescent City, a half-moon of shanties drawn up on the shore, with the eternal surf of the broad Pacific In default of words, the Sergeant tries a beating forever in front, and dense forests dark-sketch of one of these trees. The huge trunk ling in the rear. Six months before it had been occupies the whole breadth of the sheet of a busy place. Long trains of mules set out paper, and by it, as a sort of measure, is a thence for the diggings, some ten or twelve horseman, depicted on as small a scale as his days' journey among the mountains. Then blunt pencil will permit. "It won't do," he arose the quarrels with the Indians. Smith's writes under the picture, by way of noteValley, the home of a coast tribe, was "taken "the tree doesn't look big enough." The trail up" by the settlers, who stole the squaws and through this forest was a bed of soft mud, winding around the trees, through which the men plodded wearily, each loaded with rations for three days. At length they came to a river which must be forded. When the thick woolen trowsers of the soldiers become saturated with water, they are so heavy as to interfere with the marching. So the Captain ordered every man to strip off his lower garments, keeping his coat on. Clothing, rations, and ammunition were then hoisted upon their shoulders to be out of the way of the water, which was waist-deep, running with great velocity, and as cold as ice. The Captain and another officer stationed themselves in the deepest part, so as to help any one who might be swept from his feet. In plunged the bare-legged troops, and with infinite plashing and oh-oh-ing buffeted their way across. A couple of the "little uns" lost their footing, and disappeared for a moment under the water; but were fished up by the officers. Only four men had their ammunition wet. After a while they struck the coast, and marched along it, over cheerless bluffs and naked sand-hills. Near a small creek they found a spot where settlers had "located." The burnt rafters of the huts, the pigs and poultry running wild, and a new-made grave, told the story of the little settlement, and of its destruction by the savages. At another place, two graves were pointed out near a picket. Here a couple of squaws were buried. They had approached the post to talk with the whites, who, thinking they might be spies, had shot them on the spot. There is a fearful account in barbarity open between the settlers and the savages. Who can tell on which side the balance lies? On the banks of the River Chetkoe the soldiers found the ruins of a hut. It had belonged to an adventurer who had established a ferry across the river. The Indians ferried people across at a lower price than he demanded. He maltreated them, and hence arose the troubles in this region. Here the troops happened to find a caché of potatoes and cabbages that had belonged to the late ferryman. "This was a God-send to us poor soldiers," says the Sergeant, "for Uncle Sam doesn't furnish them with any thing of the sort better than rice and tough old beans. Every man was busy at the caché in a moment, eager to lay in a stock of 'praties' for supper. The ferryman's fence, which made capital fuel, suffered some-and so did we, for it began to rain, and kept it up all night." Hereabouts an express met them, urging the Colonel to hurry on to a point twenty-five miles distant, where fighting was going on. Twenty-five volunteers had fortified themselves on a sand-bank, where they were surrounded by the Indians. Off went the soldiers, up hills and down precipices. One of the mules slipped going up a steep ascent, and in his struggles to regain his feet, kicked a nugget of pure gold out of the hill-side. It was picked up by the man who happened to be next behind the longeared quadruped. It weighed two and a half ounces. They kept a sharp look-out for Indians-a little too sharp, as one fellow found to his cost. He saw something-or thought he did-and gave the alarm-"Indians!" Charge-double quick!" shouted the Colonel, and the soldiers dashed into the woods. But not an Indian was there, much to the wrath of the officer. "Where's the man that cried Indians ?" he exclaimed. "Send him here. So you are the fellow that saw Indians when there were none! How dare you give a false alarm? I'll give you Indians next time you play such a trick!-Move on!" When they reached the volunteers, they found that they had had an unpleasant time of it. They had been shut up in a sort of pen, only two or three logs high, and these were stuck full of arrows and bullets. One man lay dead inside. The Indians had stolen all their horses, and kept up a constant firing from behind a row of sand-hills, fifty yards off. One cunning fellow annoyed them much. He would lift his hat over the ridge, and when he had drawn the fire of the whites, would spring up and discharge his piece. At last his trick was found out; one of the volunteers reserved his fire, while the others blazed away as usual at the hat. No sooner did the top of the Indian's head appear then a bullet from the unerring rifle "took the top of it clean off; next mornin' we saw the blood and har on the spot," said one of the volunteers. They thought they had picked off six or eight of the besiegers. As they approached Rogue River, they now and then got a shot at a red-skin. At the mouth of the river they came upon the ruins of the huts and flumes which the miners had deserted. They had been attacked by surprise a month before, and those who had escaped crossed the river and built a mud fort, where they had held out against the savages. All around lay the proofs of attack: mangled and putrefying bodies, half devoured by crows and gulls. Some had been tied fast, and their throats had been cut; the heads of others had been crushed in by blows from hatchets; the bodies of others were riddled with bullets. As the soldiers approached the deserted huts, they saw a few Indians running out, and making off for the woods, after having set fire to the buildings. They were about to pitch their camp, when the fog lifted from the river, and they saw a body of whites on the opposite bank. One of these swam across on a plank, and told the Colonel that it would be dangerous to encamp there, for the adjacent woods were full of Indians, who would be able to pick them off at pleasure. So they moved down to the beach and encamped on the bare shore. The Sergeant happened to be peering at the distant woods through a spy-glass, when he caught a glimpse of a couple of dark visages, "A queer place it was, and queer people they were in it," says the Sergeant, who was among the first to enter. The children were playing half a mile off, rising from the bushes, and evi- | crossed the river to the mud fort where the setdently on the look-out for something in the tlers had taken refuge. neighborhood of the camp. They remained as immovable as though cast in bronze, little dreaming that the whites had a "medicine" which brought them in full view. What they were look-outside, glad of a chance to get out after their ing at was soon apparent. There was an old miners' ditch running down from the hills to the neighborhood of the camp. This made a capital covered way, and a gang of the Indians had crept down in the hope of picking off a straggler or two, and their friends up in the bush were watching the execution of this plan. One of the whites had strayed off toward the ditch, when three or four simultaneous shots came near finishing him. "Indians! Indians! Turn out, double quick time!" was the cry, and a party started for the ditch. "Almost all our men were raw recruits," says the Sergeant, who, being a veteran himself, feels no little contempt for recruits and volunteers; "and when the bullets began to whistle about our head they would dodge. But dodging or no dodging, the Captain cussed us forward, and we ran at full speed for the ditch. But the Indians ran faster than we could, and got off." "How the ugly, naked red divils run," said a Hibernian soldier to his comrade, as they made their way back to camp. "An' did ye see that old sinner jump up as high as ever he could, an' make faces at us?" "Yes, an' I got a pop at him, an' give him something to jump up for." month's confinement. There were rough buckskin-clad miners and mule-drivers, thick-lipped flabby squaws, delicate-looking American women, and dirty, noisy children, and a general mixture of all the mongrel and nondescript races of the mines, crowded together in the little fort. Entering the best looking cabin, he found it full almost to suffocation. The people had evidently got accustomed to close quarters. Some were smoking, some sleeping; one was frying pork over the fire. A pretty young woman in one corner was putting the finishing touches to her toilet. The white women, who had kept the squaws at a respectable distance, in a separate hut, were full of what they had suffered, and eager to tell all the news. There had been a succession of fighting and parleying. At one time a party of fourteen, who had gone out to dig potatoes, fell into an ambuscade, and had lost six of their number. A boat from Port Orford, which had attempted to bring provisions to the fort, had swamped in the surf, and six of the crew were drowned. Among the prisoners who had been taken by the Indians, was a Mrs. Geysel and her three daughters-her husband and three sons were killed. They had succeeded in inducing the Indians to give up Mrs. Geysel and her children, though they were loth to part with the eldest, as one of the chiefs wished to keep her as his wife. Night fell, and the only sound was the hollow beating of the surf upon the shore. The sentinels lay crouched under the bushes or in shal- Mrs. Geysel was there, a stout buxom woman, low pits dug in the sand. The mist fell coldly, with a strong German accent and pronunciation. and the Sergeant had given his blanket an ex- She and the others-three or four talking at a tra fold, and was half thinking half dreaming time-commenced telling what had happened. of a bright fireside and loving faces far away- "Dey give us blenty to eat, and blenty of for peaceful visions will now and then flit before hard work to do," said Mrs. G. "Dey kills the memory and fancy of the sternest old vet-ever so many cattle-sometimes two, dree in eran-when a shot, and another, and another, von day." was heard from the direction of the line of sentries. In a moment one man and then another staggered forward and fell to the ground. "Yes, our cattle every one of 'em; and a nice time the rascals had of it, too," chimed in another. "An' they didn't want to let Mrs. Geysel go," said a third; “an' they would'n't a-let her darter there off any way, if it hadn't a-been for Charley Brown an' his squaw." 66 All rushed to arms, expecting an attack; but none came. The fallen men were brought in. The first proved to be the corporal of the guard. He had been making the round of the sentries, one of whom-a raw recruit, as the Sergeant is careful to mention-mistaking him for an In-'em; dian, had fired upon him, and given a mortal wound. The other fallen man was one of the sentinels, who had rushed toward the camp as soon as he heard the firing, and had tumbled down in sheer affright. "So much," comments Sergeant Jones, "for sending recruits fresh from an emigrant ship, to fight Indians in the woods. This is the third corporal of the guard whom I have known shot by green sentinels." The next day, after burying the corporal, the soldiers managed to rig up an old flat-boat, and | Charley an' his squaw went right out among an' the chiefs came up an' shook hands with Charley." "Yes, an' Charley's squaw had to go out more'n once," broke in another good dame. "She's a real good squaw, she is," certified a tall raw-boned dame, "a sort of a she-General Jackson in looks"-so the Sergeant describes her-who had seen much of life in the diggings, and hated squaws in general most devoutly. "Yes, she's a real good squaw, if there ever was one; an' Miss Geysel would a-had to stay with the Indians if it hadn't a-been for her." "They e'enamost had a fight about it; an' old Josh-he's one of the chiefs-like to got, squaw-had a child in her arms. These seemkilled 'cause he wanted to let her go, an' the ed sad at the prospect of being sent away; but others didn't." the younger ones squatted down before the Colonel's tent, chattering and sewing, as though they didn't care whether they staid or went. "Charley now made his appearance, accom "We had to give 'em ever so much for hermore'n twenty blankets, and lots o' provisions an' clothes." "They would have that," said the pretty young woman, who had by this time arranged her attire to her satisfaction. ""Twas a beautiful head-dress, with ever so many feathers and ribbons. One of the chiefs took a likin' to it, and wanted to wear it himself." "Yes, an' a'ter all, they would have that panied by the guide, who happened also to be a handsome head-dress." member of the Oregon Legislature, and a justice of the peace. The pair held a short consultation with the Colonel; and then the woman was called forward, and there, on the banks of the Rogue River, by the shore of the great Pacific, with a circle of rough-looking miners standing around, the marriage ceremony was performed. Charley promised to have her, and her only, for his lawful wedded wife, and then translated the words of the ceremony for the benefit of his dusky tattooed bride. She grunted out some rough Indian gutterals in reply, and the knot was tied. There was no kissing the bride, and no wedding feast. Some of the by-standers were inclined to make light of the ceremony; but Charley, growling out an oath or two, dandled his baby, and looked defiance at the mockers and starers. I could not help thinking that his determination to cling to the poor brown woman for better or worse, while the prospect before them was all 'worse' and no 'better,' showed that there was some honest manhood in the rough fellow." So the poor women gossiped, as though they had not been for a month shut up, in peril of their lives, in a little mud fort, with hundreds of wild Indians prowling around eager to get a shot at them. There was an aristocracy here as well as elsewhere. The white women were awfully severe upon the five poor squaws who had come to the fort with their mining protectors, who were contemptuously styled "squawmen." The General Jackson-looking Amazon, who had dropped a word in favor of Charley Brown's squaw, was especially severe upon the poor Indian women; and took an early opportunity to tell the Sergeant that she hoped they "were a-goin' to kill all the squaws and copper-colored young ones." She was hugely disgusted when she was informed that no such measure was in contemplation; and in Lady Macbeth style offered to do the bloody work with her own hands, "if they dass'n't." Before long a little schooner from Port Orford came down, and the Colonel proposed to send all the women and children up by her. The squaws were to be sent to their tribe, who had "come in," and all were to go on a "reservation." Then came a storm. The women wouldn't go in the schooner if the squaws went -the good-for-nothing hussies. The Colonel said the squaws should go at any rate; and if the white women did not choose to go with them, they might stay at the fort. The "squaw-men" were also unwilling to give up their dark favorites, and to suffer them to go back to their tribe. Foremost among these was Charley Brown. "His squaw was a good one-every body said so; she was, besides, the mother of his child, and before she should go on the reserve, he'd marry her off-hand. If he wouldn't he'd be " We omit the clincher which honest Charley put to his determination, trusting that the Recording Angel performed for his expletive the same kindly service which he did for Uncle Toby's oath. Charley meant what he said, and did actually marry the woman. We must let the Sergeant describe the wedding: "The five squaws were brought down to the camp. Three of them were young, and not badlooking, and had learned to dress in frocks. Two were old and ugly, with blue tattooing around their mouths. One of them-Charley's VOL. XIII.-No. 76.-L L So says Sergeant Jones, and so say we. After Charley's marriage, another hard-looking fellow stepped forward, looking terribly frightened, and was in like manner wedded to the other old woman. But the men to whom the three younger squaws pertained, declared, with more oaths than the occasion demanded, that they "would'n't marry 'em any how." But there was fighting as well as marrying to be done. One day the Colonel determined to send an expedition some ten or a dozen miles up the river, to destroy "Mackanootenay's Town." Some hard fighting was anticipated, and the party was a strong one. "Climbing up these hills," says the Sergeant, "with blankets, overcoats, muskets, ammunition, and two days' rations strapped on our backs, made some of the new hands swear as well as sweat." In course of time they came within view of the Indian village, hid away in a quiet and peaceful nook. Steep hills and thick jungle shut it in on three sides, the fourth being covered by the river, sixty yards broad, running with a rapid current. Thirteen huts stood in a row near the river. They were not the slight lodges of the nomadic tribes of the prairie, but were excavations six or eight feet deep, and eighteen or twenty feet broad, lined with boards and skins, and covered with clap-boards and thatching. The coast Indians do not wander from their own valley, for there is no unoccupied room, and if a tribe does not confine its fishing to its own home, a fight is the consequence. A few horses were quietly grazing on the green; but the village was deserted by its human inhabitants, though the embers still |