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could hardly have been any reliance placed upon the durability of the treaty made with chief Sam. Skinner was unable to perform what was expected of him as a representative of the government, not being supplied with the means; and Sam was but an unwilling party to it from the beginning. So far as the chief was individually concerned, however, he, for the greater part of a year, observed the conditions imposed upon him by the treaty.

But a sub-chief, called Taylor, who had his range in the Grave creek country, murdered a party of seven men, during a severe storm in the hills, and reported them drowned. Other depredations were traced to him, and a rumor became current that the Rogue-rivers held white women captive at Table Rock. This rumor probably grew out of the story, already referred to, that the Modocs held captive two white girls for some time, whom they finally tortured to death. The imagination of the public, excited by the atrocities in the Modoc country, was sensitive to any suggestion of Indian malevolence, and the desire for vengeance was ill suppressed, ready to break out into action at any moment. Finally, about the first of June, a