Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1895 — INDIAN WAR ON. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

INDIAN WAR ON.

Wyoming Settlers Arm Themselves and Prepare to Fight. The Indian war has broken out in earnest. The vague rumor that a white man and his wife and child had been killed in the Wyoming Salt River Valley, and that settlers in retaliation had killed six of the redskins is confirmed. The excitement among the settlers in Northwestern Wyoming over the threatened uprising of the Bannock and Shoshone Indians is growing more intense every day. They are leaving their ranches in lurge numbers and gathering at favored points for mutual protection in case the irate Indians return to seek vengeance for the death of their brother braves. The story of the killing of the three whites and six Indians is spreading alarm at rapid rate. The settlers are becoming thoroughly aroused, and if they are not soon protected by government troops they will take the field in protection of their own homes and lives, and they are well qualified by long experience in this country to do even more effective fighting than the regulars. The Indians realize that the cowboys are more dangerous than the troops. The reds know they can surrender to the soldiers and they will be in no further danger, but when the frontier volunteers go out to hunt Indians they fight as the Indians do themselves. They shoot to kill and kill all in sight. The trouble originated when thirty men set out from Jackson's Hole to arrest a band of Indians for violating the State game laws. In Hoback canyon they discovered an Indian camp and at daylight surprised the Indians and captured them all without a shot being fired. In this camp they found 135 green elk skins. Each Indian was started back for the Hole with a white man at his back with, his rifle across his arm ready for any emergency. The squaws were in the rear with the packs, and William Crawford in the rear of the squaws with the constables in charge. When nearly through an Indian let out a war whoop and every Indian, squaw and all, broke from the trail and attempted to escape. The posse immediately opened fire, and in the laconic language of the report, “all the Indians were killed except one papoose.” The posse immediately covered up all trace of their deadly work, shot the Indian horses and hastened back to Marysville, Jack-

son’s Hole. The settlers there immediately began to prepare for the worst. Governor Richards said: “This Indian trouble must be settled quickly, and unless the Washington authorities take decisive action soon I will make a State matter out of it and order out the State troops to arrest all of the roving Indians who are causing the trouble and turn them over to the authorities. I am determined that the Indians shall be made to respect the laws of the State as well as their white neighbors. The authorities at Washington do not seem to understand the situation and aro careless in regard to correspondence on the subject. My predecessor, Governor Osborne, wrote a letter to the Interior Department in relation to these Indians killing game last summer. That letter wns never answered. Neither was the one I wrote last month.” R. S. Strahan, ex-Judge, of the Oregon Suerans Court, died at Portland.

SEAT OF THE INDIAN TROUBLES.