Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/321

THE ROGUE RIVER WARS. 303 among the tules, and on an island in the lake, and equally alarmed the immigrants, who mistook them for mounted Indians, and prepared for a yet more desperate encounter. But their fears were changed to joy when Wright, discovering their alarm, rode forward alone. This train was escorted beyond danger, and the company returned to learn what had taken place in the Modoc country.

Wright found the mutilated bodies of the eight men before mentioned, with those of three of his acquaintances, members of McDermit's company, who had been sent to guide trains, and conclusive evidences that no party or train had escaped destruction which had entered the fatal pass of Bloody Point since the nineteenth.

Filled with rage and grief, Wright and his men made haste to attack the Indians in their stronghold. To do this they had to wade in water among the tules that was up to their armpits, and fight the Modocs concealed in ambuscades constructed of tules, having portholes. Such was the vigor of their charge, however, that the ambuscades were quickly depopulated, and thirty or more Modocs killed while escaping to the rocky island in the lake.

After this battle, Wright proceeded east to Clear lake, where he met a large party of immigrants and planned a stratagem to draw the Indians out of their strong position on the island. He unloaded several ox wagons, filled them with armed men, a few of whom were clothed in women's apparel, tied down the wagon covers and instructed the men to proceed in the usual careless and loitering way of true immigrants along the dangerous pass. But the Indians either had out spies who reported the trick, or were too severely punished to feel like attacking white men, and remained in their fastnesses.

Wright then went to Yreka and had boats built with which to reach the island, spending the time of waiting in patroling the road through the Modoc country. In the meantime, accounts of the massacres had reached Jacksonville, and another company, commanded by John E. Ross