Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/377

 which bled

profusely and so blinded me that I could do nothing further for my unhappy allies. It was a hopeless case. While the fight waxed hot I stole off up a canon with a number of the Shasta Indians and escaped. I came upon an old wounded warrior leaning on his bow by the trail. The old man said " Klamat ! " bowed his head and pointed to the ground.

The prophecy had been fulfilled.

Do not imagine these were great battles. Other events had the ears of the world then, and they were probably hardly heard of beyond the lines of the State. Half armed, and wholly untrained, the Indians could not or did not make a single respectable stand. The losses were almost always wholly on their side.

Had they been able to make one or two bold advances against the whites, then negotiations would have been opened, terms offered, opinions exchanged, rights and wrongs discussed, and the Indians would at least have had a hearing. But so long as the troops had it their own way, the only terms were the Reservation, or annihilation.

The few remaining Modoc warriors now returned to their sage-brush plains and tule lakes to the east ; the Shastas withdrew to the head-waters of the McCloud, thus abandoning lands that it would take you days of journey to encompass ; and the Pit River Indians, now almost starving, with an approach ing winter to confront, sent in their remain