TRINITY DIGGINS, NEAR THE MOUTH OF WEAVER CREEK, May 2, 1851
A short time since some forty-seven mules belonging to miners on Big Bar were taken from the corral and driven off. On the discovery about the corral of numberless bare feet tracks a considerable excitement ensued, and every body was soon armed and prepared to take vengeance upon the Indians. They however in following their trail some two hundred yards, found where the thieves had pulled off their boots.—
Eleven of them immediately set out to pursue, seven of whom before the first day was over, returned, whilst the rest continued, and for five days they traveled across the coast range without a mouthful to eat, fighting their way, as the thieves by some means or other put the Indians up to check every body that might be coming in pursuit. The four men however reached the Sacramento Valley in five days with fourteen Indian scalps tied on a string, and followed the robbers down the south side of the Cottonwood Creek, across the Sacramento, and found them in the forks of Antelope Creek, a few miles below Ide’s Ranch.
The thieves as soon as they saw their pursuers fired upon them, but they fortunately escaping the deadly aim, leveled their pieces in turn and killed three. They scalped them, collected their mules, which were feeding a little distance off on the plains, and started immediately back to this place. One of the thieves they recognised as being one John Emory, and another was a tall red-haired man by the name of Spafford doubtless known by many below as a stock trader.
Marysville Daily Herald, 10 May 1851