Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/372

 ed of his

cattle and his crops and the two children climbed about my knees.

No sign of war here. Not a hundred miles away a people all summer had been battling for their fire sides, for existence, and yet it had been hardly felt in the settlements. Such is the effect of the quiet, steady, eternal warfare on the border. It is never felt, never hardly heard of, till the Indians become the aggressors.

The old lady came at last and sat down with her knitting and a ball of yarn in her lap. She talked of the price of butter and eggs, and said they should soon be well-to-do and prosperous in their new home.

I retired early, and rising with the dawn, left a gold coin on the table, and rode rapidly toward the city.

I was not satisfied with my desperate and bloody undertaking. As I passed little farm-houses with vines and blossoms and children about the doors, I began to wonder how many kind and honest people were to be ruined in my descent upon the settle ments.

The city I found assailable from every side. There was not a soldier within ten miles. Fifty men could ride into the place, hold it long enough to fire it in a hundred places, and then ride out unhindered.

It seems a little strange that I met kindness and civility now when I did not want it. Of course I was utterly unknown, and having taken c