Page:The Californian volume 1,issue 2.djvu/63

 wine sensation. General Davis, Mr. Fairchild, five soldiers of the Fourth Artillery, a special correspondent, and the four red-handed Modocs suddenly rode away together in the direction of the Lava Beds. Each member of the party was armed, and some of them may have been eager fora fray. I can safely acquit one member of any such eagerness. The General carried two self-cocking revolvers; Fairchild, the soldiers, and the special were armed with carbines; and the Indians were provided with Springfield rifles and a prodigal supply of cartridges. The Indians preferred the rifles because of their superiority to the carbines. The day was pleasant, the road, barring fugitive blocks of lava which now and then caused the animals to stumble, was fairly adapted for horseback traveling, and the ride, under most circumstances, would have been highly enjoyable. But the proverbial thorn was there. It was difficult for me to realize that the four savages, who rode just in the advance, had been divested of their hostile intent, and transformed into peaceful, plodding scouts in the space of twenty-four hours. The regeneration was too miraculous for belief. I was prepared to see these aborigines whirl around in their saddles and pay us a few leaden compliments. I even considered the relative speed of the horses we rode. I thought of the dispatch I could show in case trouble occurred and it became necessary for me to ride away for succor. It afforded me a sort of melancholy satisfaction to think that it might be my first duty to ride off in case firing began. My view of the situation was not rendered more agreeable when it became necessary to send two of our soldier escort on a special mission to Hasbrouck, then encamped on Lost River, distant sixty miles. General Davis announced that the party, as now constituted, would halt on the western border of the Lava Beds, and, next morning, proceed directly through the beds to Boyle's Camp. This camp was a permanent depot for stores. It was situated on a peninsula jutting out from the eastern side of Rhett Lake. Most of the Modocs were supposed to have left the beds, and the soldiers were being concentrated at Boyle's to recruit for outside scouting operations. We reached the border of the beds in about four hours, our ride having been entirely peaceful. We found that the evacuation was all but completed. The last of the troops, under Colonel Mendenhall and Captains Field, Bancroft, Throckmorton, and other officers of the Fourth Artillery, were encamped on the brow of the bluff overlooking the beds from the west, and had arranged to depart next day for the Boyle Camp, by way of Lost River. This was a circuitous route, but the only one available for the infantry. We were the guests of Colonel Mendenhall for the night.

After supper, I strolled along the edge of the bluff for my last view of the Modocs' rocky abode. The Lava Beds are of historical interest. As the scenes of Modoc triumphs they will ever claim the attention of the civilized world. Seventy warriors, encumbered with women and children to the number of two hundred, had defied the United States Government for months and months, killed and wounded soldiers equal to three times the number of their own fighting force, and again and again repulsed attacking parties consisting of several hundred regular soldiers. I recall to mind no instance in modern or ancient warfare surpassing in rude heroism the desperate defense made by the Modocs. Their success, of course, was largely due to the fact that the soldiers were not familiar with the ramifications and sinuosities of the beds. The Modoc Lava Beds (there are other lava beds in Oregon, Idaho, and Arizona) are situated northeast from Yreka, Siskiyou County, California, about fifty-three miles in an air line. This distance is over eighty miles by road. The beds proper have a width of ten miles north and south, and run east and west fifteen miles. They are bounded on the north by Rhett Lake, half of which sheet of water is in Oregon. The old emigrant road, familiar to many who crossed the plains in early days, skirts the eastern side of the beds. To the south is a nameless range of mountains. The western boundary is a bluff which continues north along the western shore of the lake. It is a rocky bluff, its face nearly a sheer precipice, and from the level of the beds to its summit the distance is five hundred and eighty-six feet. The bluff is the coign of vantage in viewing the beds. The entire lava country is compassed in a sweeping glance. Looking over the beds with the naked eyes, they appear to consist of an undulating plain. The sight is uninviting because of the general suggestion of desolation. A forsaken region is the impression left upon the mind. No trees are seen in the immediate foreground, and those in the distance are dwarfed into bushes. The counterpart of this apparent plain may be seen along the ocean shore of New England. Let grounded sea-weed represent the dark lines twisting through the bed, and the picture is complete. The gentle undulations, as they appear from a distance, the waving grass and bushes, the lights and shadows cast on the surface by passing clouds, are in strict keeping with a beach landscape. The white, pumice-strewn shore of Tule Lake makes the resem-