Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/322

304 INDIAN WARS OF OREGON. of that place, proceeded to the Modoc country, where it remained on the road until the season of travel was past. On the arrival of Ross, Wright returned to Yreka for supplies, and to bring out his boats. But he was unable to reach the Indians, who retreated to the lava beds, since made famous by the Modoc war, inaccessible then, as now, to white men.

That which Wright did find were the proofs that many, very many, persons, including women and children, had been cruelly tortured and butchered. Here again the men of his company, some of whom had families two or three thousand miles away, burst forth into tears of rage at the sight of women s dresses and babies socks among the property plundered from the owners. Where, now, were the men and women who had toiled over these thousands of miles to meet their fate at this place? Where the prattling babes whose innocent feet fitted the tiny socks? Even their bones were undiscoverable, but the proofs that they had lived and died were heaped up in the wickiups of their cruel slayers.

The next attempt of Wright, who seems to have remained behind the other companies, was to make a treaty with the Modocs. However much he may have desired to have seen them exterminated, or even to have helped exterminate them, the safety of all who passed through their country demanded that peace should be secured. From two captured, one of whom was wrapped in a cradle quilt, he learned that two white women were captives among the Modocs, and for this reason also he felt it necessary to enter into negotiations with them.

Wright, like Lane, had for a servant an Indian boy, who was part Modoc, and spoke their language. Using this boy as an ambassador, he finally persuaded four of the head men to visit his camp, with the purpose of discussing the terms of a treaty, his proposition being that if they would bring in the two captives, and the stock taken from the immigrants, he would leave their country