Читать книгу Vigilante Days and Ways. The pioneers of the Rockies; the makers and making of Montana and Idaho онлайн

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Upon the opening of Spring, Russell left Grasshopper on his return to Colorado, where he arrived in safety after encountering dangers enough to fill a moderate volume. For two days, while passing through Marsh Valley, he was pursued by Indians, barely escaping being shot and scalped. His courage was often put to the strongest tests. At Wood River, twenty miles from Fort Lemhi, the Bannack Indians offered him money in large amounts for fire-arms and ammunition. They stole a pistol from him. Accompanied by one Gibson, he went to their camp and recovered it. Some of them were dressed in the apparel of women whom they had murdered, and whose bodies they had concealed in the fissures of the lava beds on Snake River. More than two hundred emigrants had been killed by these wretches the preceding Summer.

Russell exhibited specimens of the gold taken from the “Grasshopper diggings,” to his friends in Colorado. The excitement it occasioned was intense, and when the Spring of 1863 opened, large numbers left for the new and promising El Dorado.