OCR Text |
Show 154 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS. out delay. In February, 1880, General Adams was sent back accompanied by " Jack," a chief of the White River Utes, and succeeded in arresting Chief Douglass, Jim Johnson and Thomas, three of the twelve indicated. The others could not be found. After arresting them it was' discovered that they could not be tried by any law outside of the State of Colorado, so they escaped unpunished. General Adams put Douglass in prison at Leavenworth, where he soon lost his mind and became a raving maniac. He is now with his tribe, a perfect imbecile. Their escaping the penalty of the law does not lessen the'credit and admiration due General Adams for his wonderful heroism in rescuing the captives, and for the delivery to the civil authorities for trial, three red-handed butchers, who were engaged in the atrocious slaughter of Meeker and his men, and who should have expiated their ghastly crime upon the scaffold, but through the misdirected mercy of the Government, were allowed to depart in peace, without the slightest punishment. Nevertheless, there is nothing in all the eventful chronicles of frontier history, in all the interminable conflicts between the pioneers of civilization and the opposing savages, which tells of bloodier scenes than were here recorded ; nor a nobler example of self-sacrificing heroism than was given to the world by General Charles Adams in his long and terrible journey in mid-winter, through the trackless mountains, buried in snow, for the sole purpose of rescuing those defenseless women from the hands of their murder-stained captors. For this service he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the little South American Kingdom of Bolivia, a post which he filled with infinite credit. |