Lincoln, near Smith's River. The reservation in Round Valley is in urgent need of a military force. The settlers in the valley, some eighty or ninety in number (nearly all of whom are open secessionists), are evidently determined to break up the reservation. Four of them have squatted upon 1,080 acres of it and refuse to go off. The settlers generally are constantly threatening the Indians, that they will kill them if they do not leave. Some three days before my arrival they had thus succeeded in driving away two entire tribes, the Con Cows and the Hat Crecks, from 400 to 500 in number. The remainder, consisting, it is stated, of some 1,500, are being worked upon in the same manner, and Mr. Short, the supervisor, thinks that nothing will prevent them from leaving also but the presence of troops. Ample crops of grain had been planted this season, all carefully hedged or fenced. Mr. Short states that with the view of starving the Indians out, all these crops have been destroyed by the settlers, or by some among them. As the winter's supply of grain for the Indians has thus entirely failed, and as there is very little live-stock left there must be great distress among them this winter for food, and many of them will no doubt be driven to obtain it by depredating upon the whites, who will naturally retaliate by massacring the Indians. Only a few weeks since some twenty-two Indians, including women and children, were killed by the settlers in cold blood. These were not reservation Indians, but belonged to a tribe of Wylackies that had taken refuge on the reservation from a band of white kidnapers that were in pursuit of them. The pretext for the massacre was that some forty head of cattle belonging to the settlers had disappeared, a dn that there was ground to suppose that they had been killed by these Indians. It afterward turned out that the cattle had only wandered out into another pasture ground, and they were all brought in safe and sound. Some of the murdering settlers admitted, Mr. Short says, that they knew these Indians had not taken their cattle, but that they killed them for fear that they would. The supervisor's own life is perhaps hardly safe. Two rifle-shots were fired at him in his bedroom last May, though without effect. I shall send Captain Douglas' company there as soon as possible. This is one of the three companies at Fort Gaston. Captain Douglas will take with him the mountain howitzer now at this post, and will be instructed to erect a stockade or other defense immediately on arriving. For obvious reasons it will be necessary for the company to be posted as far away from the Indian rancherias as possible, and the troops will be required to put up the buildings usually required for shelter during the winter season. I respectfully recommend that Captain Douglas' acting assistant quartermaster be authorized to incur such expense as may be necessary to complete them. There are plenty of logs and building material in the neighborhood. Twenty of the thirty mules now at Fort Bragg will be turned over to Captain Douglas. All supplies for Round Valley should be landed at Fort Bragg or Mendocino City, ten miles below. From Fort Bragg to Round Valley the distance is seventy miles over a tolerable trail. After the winter rains set in Round Valley is for a great part of the time inaccessible. It is nearly surrounded by Eel River, which rapidly swells so as to be impassable. In cases where there should be no loss of time I trust that Captain Douglas may be permitted to communicate directly with your headquarters. By the overland mail from San Francisco, which is semi-weekly, dispatches would reach him in three days. Fort Baker, on the Van Dusen, and Camp Curtis, near Arcata, will be retained as posts through the winter, being necessary