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 A run by Applegate with twenty men, around Van Brimmer's hill, as the ridge between Van Brimmer's and the lava beds was called, revealed the fact that the Modocs used this height as an observatory whence they informed themselves of the movements of the troops. Scarface afterward said that Applegate's party passed within twenty feet of his hiding place, but he could not safely attack. On the 12th of January a scouting expedition, consisting of thirteen men under Perry, a few Klamath scouts under Donald McKay, thirty men, half of them Indians, under Applegate, and the whole under Green, made a reconnoissance to the lava beds from Van Brewer's, to ascertain the practicability of taking wagons to a position in their front. On the appearance of Green with Perry's detachment, the Modoc pickets fired on them from a rocky point of the high bluff, on the verge of the lava beds. Perry returned their fire, and drove the Modoc guard over the bluff, shooting one of Shacknasty's men through the shoulders. Applegate came up in time to observe that the Modocs were scattering in small parties to ascend the bluff and get on the flank of the troops, when he distributed his Indians along the bluff for a considerable distance, in the rocks, to intercept them.

Scarface, who was standing upon a high point in the lava beds, discovered the movement, and cried out in a stentorian voice to his warriors, "keep back. I can see them in the rocks." The Modoc guard then fell back half way down the hill, where they made a stand, and uttered speeches of defiance to the soldiers, and entreaty to their Indian allies, reproaching them for joining themselves to their natural enemies the white men. Captain Jack and Black Jim were very confident, daring the troops to come down and fight them on the lava beds. Hooker Jim said, once he had been a peace man, but was now for war, and if the soldiers wanted to fight, the opportunity should be afforded them. One of their medicine men then