"What's the matter with going
into business? Here's a heap of people going through, and more
coming every day. This ferry business could be made to pay big.
Them Injins charges two bits a head. That's a crime for the only
way across. And how much do you suppose whisky'd be worth to
drink after that desert? And a man's so sick of himself by the
time he gets this far that he'd play chuck-a-luck, let alone faro
or monte."
That kind of talk hit them where they lived, and Yuma was founded
right then and there. They hadn't any whisky yet, but cards were
plenty, and the ferry monopoly was too easy. Walleye served
notice on the Injins that a dollar a head went; and we all set to
building a tule raft like the others. Then the wild bunch got
uneasy, so they walked upstream one morning and stole the Injins'
boats. The Injins came after them innocent as babies, thinking
the raft had gone adrift. When they got into camp our men opened
up and killed four of them as a kind of hint. After that the
ferry company didn't have any trouble. The Yumas moved up river
a ways, where they've lived ever since. They got the corpses and
buried them. That is, they dug a trench for each one and laid
poles across it, with a funeral pyre on the poles.
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