Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/224



One fine morning she set forth on her contem plated journey. I did not now like the place so well. For the first time, I found fault with the things around me. The forest was black, gloomy, ghostly a thing to be dreaded. Before, it was dreamy, deep a marvel, a something to love and delight in. The cabin, that had been a very palace, was now so small and narrow, it seemed I would suffocate in the smoke. The fires did not burn so well as they did before. Nobody could build a fire like Paquita.

Back from our cabin a little way were some grand old bluffs, topped with pine and cedar, from which the view of valley, forest, and mountain, was all that could be desired. A little way down the Numken, from the warm springs, the waters of the valley came together and went plunging all afoam down the canon, almost impassable even for footmen. Here we found fine veins of quartz, and first-rate indi cations of gold both in the rock and in the placer. The Prince and the Doctor revived their theories on the origin of gold, and had many plans for putting their speculations to the test.

Klamat was never idle, yet he was never social. There was a bitterness, a sort of savage devilry, in all he did. A fierce positive nature was his, and hardly bridled at that.

Whether that disposition dated further back than a certain winter, when the dead were heaped up and the wigwams burned on the banks of the Klamat, or