Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/615

 former friends, and even with the camp of Gillem, through the visits to these places of the Modoc women. They quickly came to understand that they were to be visited by a peace commission; and not to be behind the United States in humanity, they also pretended to a peace party among themselves, and even that Jack had been wounded by his own men for not fighting on the 17th.

This familiar phase of Indian diplomacy did not deceive any one. Fairchild endeavored to gain an interview, but was refused. After a quiet interval of nearly a fortnight, some of their scouts again ventured out as far as Crawley's house, which they burned.

When the people whose relatives had been killed in the massacre of the 29th and 30th of November heard of the peace commission, they took steps to have eight of Jack's band indicted before the grand jury of Jackson county, in order to forestall the possible action of the commissioners, and secure the punishment of the murderers. Governor Grover also filed a protest with the board against any action of the commission which should purport to condone the crimes of the Modocs, who, he claimed, should be given up and delivered over to the civil authorities for trial and punishment, and insisting that they would have no more authority to declare a reservation on the settled lands of Lost River than on the other settled portions of the state.

To this protest, which was forwarded to the secretary of the interior, Delano replied that the commission should proceed without reference to it; that if the authority of the United States were defied or resisted, the government would riot be responsible for the results; and that the state might be left to take