CHAPTER Iii
CARIBOO

INDIAN unrest was probably first among the
causes which led the miners to organize them-
selves into leagues for protection. The Indians
of the Fraser were no more friendly to new-
comers now than they had been in the days
of Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser.!
They now professed great alarm for their fish-
ing-grounds. Men on the gold-bars were
jostled and hustled, and pegs marking limits
were pulled up. A danger lay in the rows of
saloons along the water-front—the well-known
danger of liquor to the Indian. So the miners
at Yale formed a vigilance committee and
established self-made laws. The saloons should
be abolished, they decreed. Sale of liquor to
any person whomsoever was forbidden. All
liquor, wherever found, was ordered spilled.
Any one selling liquor to an Indian should be
seized and whipped thirty-nine lashes on the

1 See Pioneers of the Pacific Coast in this Series,
GT. C