" I asked the bright little
fellow his name. He said his name was Johnny Whitney. "Where is
your father and what does he follow for a living?" "My father is
dead, and my mother takes in washing to support herself and
children."
That afternoon I spent in assisting the little fellow to prepare
his composition. I remained there at Yreka about ten days, during
which time I received a letter from George Jones, who was then at
Jacksonville, requesting me to meet him at Fort Klamath about four
or five days before the hanging was to take place, and also
requesting me to bring all my saddle horses. I succeeded in
getting up quite a party of business men and citizens of Yreka and
we started out across the Siskiyou Mountains. After the first
day's travel we found game plentiful and we had a pleasant trip.
We had all the game and fish we wanted, which afforded plenty of
amusement for the pleasure-seekers of the crowd, which was the
main object of this trip with a majority of them. We arrived at
Fort Klamath five days before the hanging was to take place. The
next day after we arrived a crowd came in from Jacksonville, and
among them were Gen. Ross, George Jones, J. N. T. Miller and three
newspaper reporters, one of whom represented the San Francisco
Chronicle, one the San Francisco Examiner, and one the Chicago
INTER-OCEAN. Col. Miller came to me and asked if I would like a
job of carrying dispatches from there, either to Jacksonville or
to Ashland, saying: "The Chronicle man has not found a man yet
that he could trust the dispatches with.
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