fire to it on their return. They hid in a thicket of willows until they were rescued by a company of troops the following day and taken to Jacksonville. When Mrs. Harris ran to meet the soldiers, carrying her little girl in her arms, covered with blood and blackened by powder, Major Fitzgerald, the officer in command cried out, "Good God! are you a white woman?" while tears ran down the cheeks of the bronzed and bearded men.
The little son of Mrs. Harris had disappeared. Every ravine and thicket for miles around was carefully searched by men aided by the soldiers, but not a trace of the missing child was ever found. What pen could picture the grief of the sorrowing mother as the long years rolled by bringing no solution of the awful mystery. I have not the time to go farther into details.
The war was brought to a close in 1856 and the Indians taken to the reservation in the Willamette country.
During the Indian wars there was quite a body of troops in the Rogue River valley. Two companies of volunteers from California, six companies, which were organized here in the valley, and one from Douglas county, besides the regular troops stationed at Fort Lane.
The toll road was built across the Siskiyou mountains in 1857-8 under authorization of the Oregon legislature. The Oregon and California State Company was organized in 1860 to carry mail between Sacramento and Portland. A wagon road was built between Jacksonville and Crescent City this same year and a stage line established.
A company of volunteers was organized in Jacksonville in 1861 called the "Baker Guard." In 1863 a company of state troops was organized in Ashland. It was Company A 1st Regiment, 1st Brigade of Oregon Militia and was called the "Mountain Rangers."
A telegraph line was established in 1866 and the little valley of the Rogue, was put into communication with the outside world.
