Camp Curtis, and he desires that the requisite preparations be made before winter. It is doubtless true that the mail between Arcata and Waverville via Fort Gaston is of but little service to the public, and it would be well under all the circumstances if it was discontinued between the places last mentioned until an escort could be dispensed with. Still it is a regularly established U. S. mail route and as such must be protected. There is no discretion in the matter, orders from department headquarters directing that the mail route be protected. The district commander therefore directs that the escort be resumed as heretofore, and that it be at Arcata for this purpose on Saturday next. The prisoners at Fort Gaston awaiting trial by court-material, it is thought, had better be forwarded to Fort Humboldt, as the court-martial will likely be convened here. In regard to the Indian prisoner, if there be proof of his complicity in the murder of whites, he must suffer the penalty. His disposition is left to your judgment. Your management of the Hoopa Valley Indians is approved of, and is so mentioned in dispatches to department headquarters. Continue to control them with a firm, yet equitable, hand.

By order of Lieutenant Colonel S. G. Whipple, commanding Humboldt Military District:

A. W. HANNA,

First Lieutenant and Adjt. First Batt. Mountainers, Cal. Vols.,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS HUMBOLDT MILITARY DISTRICT, Fort Humboldt, September 9, 1863.

Lieutenant Colonel R. C. DRUM,
Asst. Adjt. General, Dept. of the Pacific, San Francisco, Cal.:

COLONEL: From official reports from Major W. S. R. Taylor, First Battalion Mountaineers, commanding Fort Gaston, I learn that measures have been inaugurated to bring the Hoopa Valley Indians into a state of subordination to the military authorties. It has long been believed that the Hoopa Indians were holding commerce with the Redwoods and other hostile bands, and that occasionally young bucks from the valley joined those in the mountains in their predatory exercusions. The largest and most influential tribe in this portion of the State lives in Hoopa Valley, and there is no doubt of the complicity of the Hoopas in the war which has been waged for years against the white settlers by the Indians of this region. True, they have always denied any participation with the smaller tribes around themin hostilities against while people, but men of good judgment who have an opportunity to observe believe to the contrary. Sharing the opinion that the outlaws in the mountains received advice, encouragement, assistance, and asylum at the hands of the Hoopas, I instructed the officer commanding Fort Gaston to keep vigilant watch over their movements. The result is to render that certain which need not have been doubted before.

On the 30th ultimo it came to the knowledge of the officer commanding Fort Gaston that three hostile Indians were in one of the villages near the fort, and Lieutenant Hempfield was sent with a small detachment to secure them. He demanded that they be delivered up, which was peremptorily refused, and assistance given the outlaws to escape. Major Taylor then gave the Indians to understand that they must deliver up the three renegades in question within three days or they would not after that time be allowed to control their own movements. This they made light of and expressed their wiht. The