Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/103



CHAPTER VIII.

BLOOD ON THE SNOW.

HERE was a tribe of Indians camped down on the rapid, rocky Elamat river a sullen, ugly set were they, too : at least so said The Forks. Never social, hardly seeming to notice the whites, who were now thick about them, below them, above them, on the river and all around them. Sometimes we would meet one on the narrow trail; he would gather his skins about him, hide his bow and arrows under their folds, and, without seeming to see any one, would move past us still as a shadow. I do not remember that I ever saw one of these Indians laugh, not even to smile. A hard-featured, half-starved set of savages, of whom the wise men of the camp prophesied no good.

The snow, unusually deep this winter, had driven them all down from the mountains, and they were compelled to camp on the river.

The game, too, had been driven down alo