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Show MASSACRE. 141 with them, received half a dozen offers of marriage from Ute braves. Mr. Meeker went to work with his accustomed energy and the conscientious devotion to duty which characterized all his dealings with his fellow-beings, to do what was right by the Indians and the Government. He accordingly solicited as employees at the agency intelligent men of sober and industrious habits, people peculiarly genial, and calculated to win by unvarying kindness the regard of the Utes. The agency was removed during Mr. Meeker's administration twenty miles from White River to Powell's bottom, one of the most beautiful tracts of land on the continent. Here he began to teach the unsophisticated children of nature how to cultivate the soil. The experiment worked well until the spring of 1879. Early in the season he began preparations for a large crop. He had fenced the ground, dug wells, and built irrigating ditches. The Indians, still unreconciled, made serious complaints of these innovations. To the fence they objected strenuously, because it injured the feet and legs of their ponies. They made frequent protests to Mr. Meeker, and finally sent a delegation of four to lay their grievances before Governor Pitkin. These commissioners bewailed bitterly the Agent's effort to cultivate the ground, and his daughter's attempt to teach their children the ways of the white man. They wanted him restricted to supplying them with food, and compelled to allow them to live their lives in their own way. They assumed a hostile position during the entire summer, at times committing horrible depredations on the white man's side of the line, and the miners or prospectors who |
