Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/574

556 anywhere about Tule Lake, ranging the country from Link River, between the two Klamath lakes, to Yreka, in California. He was called Captain Jack by the white settlers, on account of some military ornaments which he had added to his ordinary shirt, trousers, and cap; was not an unadulterated savage, having lived long enough about mining camps to acquire some of the vices of civilization, and making money by the prostitution of the women of his band more than by honest labor. Some of the boys of this band of Modocs were employed as house-servants in Yreka, by which means they acquired a good understanding of the English language, and at the same time failed not to learn whatever of evil practices they observed among their superiors of the white race. During the civil war they heard much about the propriety of killing off the white people of the north, and other matters in harmony with their savage instincts; and being unable to comprehend the numerical strength of the American people, conceived the notion that this was a favorable time to make war upon them, while their soldiers were ﬁghting a long way off.

E. Steele, Indian superintendent of California, when he entered upon the duties of his ofﬁce in 1863, found the Klamaths and Modocs, under their chiefs Lalake and Sconchin, preparing to make war upon southern Oregon and northern California, having already begun to perpetrate those thefts and murders which are a sure prelude to a general outbreak. The operations of the 1st Oregon cavalry and the establishment of Fort Klamath to prevent these outrages are known to the reader. In February 1864 the Modocs on the border of Oregon and California, who spent much of their time in Yreka, being alarmed lest punishment should overtake them for conscious crimes, sought the advice of Steele, who, ignoring the fact that they had been allotted to the Oregon superintendency, took the responsibility of making with them a treaty of friendship and peace. This agreement was between Steele