Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/636

 sleep, two at a time, while the others watched. The second day ended with some further advances upon the stronghold, and with the batteries in better position. The blaze of musketry along the lake shore at nine o clock in the evening, when the Modocs endeavored to break through the lines to get to water, was like the flash of flames when a prairie is on fire. The troops remained again over night on the field, having only coffee served hot with their rations.

On the morning of the 17th Green's and Mason's lines met without impediment, and a general movement was made to sweep the lava-beds, the Indians seeming to rally about eleven o clock, and to oppose the approach to their famous position. But this was only a feint, and when the troops arrived at the caves the Modocs had utterly vanished. Then it appeared why they had so hotly contested the ground between Mason and Green. An examination showed a fissure in the pedregal leading from the caverns to the distant hills, which pass had been so marked that it could be followed in the darkness, and through it had been conveyed the families and property of the Modocs to a place of safety.

The loss of the army in the two days' engagements was five killed and twelve wounded. On the third day a citizen of Yreka, a teamster, was killed, and his team captured. Seventeen Indians were believed to be killed.

The consternation which prevailed when it became known that Jack had escaped with his band was equal to that after the massacre of the peace commissioners; but the worst was yet to come. From the smoke of large fires observed in the south-east, it was conjectured that the Indians were burning their dead, and fleeing in that direction, and the cavalry was ordered to pursue, Perry setting out the 18th to make a circuit of the lava-beds, a march of eighty miles. The Warm