Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/595

Rh between Jack and the troops counted eighteen white men and about the same number of Indians.

War was now fairly inaugurated. Jack had thrown down the gauntlet to the United States, and Crawley's cabin in the midst of the grassy meadows of Lost River had become the headquarters of a so far defeated arid humiliated military force. The distance from Crawley's to Fort Klamath was sixty miles, to the agency fifty-five, to Camp Yainax about the same, to Linkville twenty-three miles, to Ashland, in the Rogue River Valley, eighty-eight miles, to Camp Warner about the same distance, and to Yreka farther. There were no railroads or telegraph lines in all the country, and a chain of mountains lay between the camp and the post-road to army headquarters. That was the situation.

As soon as news of the fight reached the agency, Dyar raised a company of thirty-six Klamaths, whom he placed under D. J. Ferree, and sent to reënforce Jackson. O. C. Applegate hastened to Yainax to learn the temper of Sconchin's band of Modocs, and finding them friendly, organized and armed a guard of fifteen to prevent a raid on the camp, and taking with him nine others, part Modocs and part Klamaths, crossed the Sprague River mountains into Langell Valley, and proceeded thence to Clear Lake, to ascertain the condition of his uncle, Jesse Applegate. Arriving December 2d, he found his brother Ivan had been there with a party of six citizens and five cavalrymen. The troops being left to guard the family at Clear Lake, the citizens set out upon a search for the bodies of the killed, and O. C. Applegate with his company of Indians, himself in disguise, imme-