Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/390

 solitary

ride for the camp, where the little remnant of the Shastas were said to be gathered high up on the mountain. More empty lodges, right and left only solitude and desertion.

We left the river and turned up a gorge. Some times, in the great canon running to the sun, the air was warm and fresh of falling leaves; and then again as we turned a point it came pitching down upon us, keen and sharp from the snows of Shasta. But few birds sing here. There are some robins and larks, and also some turtle-doves, which the Indians will not harm. Partridges in splendid crests ran in hundreds across the trails, and these whistle all the year; but there was an unaccountable scarcity of birds for a country so densely timbered.

At last, when the shadows were very long, we climbed a rugged, rocky hill, nearly impassable for man or mule, and saw on a point in a clump of pines, that could only be reached by crossing an open space of rocks and lava, the camp we sought.

Indians have no terms of salutation. If the dogs do not celebrate your arrival, all things go on the same as if you had never been. You dismount, un saddle your mule, turn it to grass, take a drink of water, and then light your pipe, when the men will gather about you by degrees and the women bring refreshments. But our arrival here was an uncommon occasion. No white man had as yet set foot on this rocky ridge and natural fortress; and then when it was known that one had returned to