Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/546



of importance at headquarters, though news was brought from Langell valley that Hooker Jim and a party of Modocs had shown themselves near Alkali lake and driven off a large band of horses; also that on the night of the 24th they were at Yainax where they talked until morning, trying to persuade the reservation Modocs and Klamaths to join Jack, telling them that five tribes had promised to take the war path with him as soon as he left the lava beds, and that unless they united with the war confederacy they would not be safe. They sent their women to a man named Jordan, who lived with an Indian woman, to buy powder, but failed to obtain any. This movement of the Modocs greatly alarmed both the white men and Indians in Sprague River valley; and as the conduct of the Snakes in Goose Lake valley was alarming, a petition was presented to the governor of Oregon for protection.

The raid of the Modocs into Langell valley, and their threats to the reservation Indians, somewhat alarmed the families at the Klamath agency, who were almost entirely unprotected, Dyar being absent on the business of the peace commission, and the other white men assisting the Indians with their farms on different parts of the reservation. Knowing that the Modocs mio;ht in one n12;ht make a descent on the agency, Captain Pollock, in command at the fort, advised the temporary removal of the families to the post, and made a requisition on General Gillem for a few men to guard the government property on the reservation, which requisition was not honored on account of the need of all the troops about the lava beds.

The messenger who carried the despatch at his own instance circulated the rumor in Linkville that the Klamaths had joined the Modocs, the families at the agency had taken refuge at the fort, and the country was in a state of alarm. Happily Captain Applegate chanced to be at Linkville, on his return from the headquarters of the peace commission with his Modoc