Page:The Indian History of the Modoc War.djvu/158

 ook them off.

Just about the dawn of day Black Jim and Curley Headed Doctor made a break for liberty. They started for the river about fifty yards off. The guard commanded them to stop, bringing his gun to his right shoulder at the same time. They did not obey. They made a few more jumps before the guard could fire on them. The big chain that held them together got tangled in a bunch of sagebrush and threw them both to the ground on their faces. The fall gave Black Jim a bloody nose. The guard went up to them and told them to get up and go back to bed. Neither one moved. They just laid just as they had fallen and cursed a blue streak in English and Modoc language. They refused to go back to their bed. Finally a dozen soldiers, among them the Irishman that I mentioned two chapters back, they got around the two cap- tives; they tried every way they could think of to get the two Indians to go back to camp. No, they would not do anything but curse. Finally Pat, the Irishman, w r ent to his tent and came back with a long rope in his hands. He said, "Boys, boys, lave thim t9 me. Begorra, I will show the devils how to balk around soldiers. Let me at thim. By the holy Scripture I'll break thim to lead. Here, boys, fasten this rope around their black necks, and then let me handle the ribbons. I'll bet you, boys, a whole plug of chewing tobacco that they will follow me."

But he did not get a chance to test his rope cure on the Indians. The boys closed in on the sullen braves, picked them up and carried them back to their beds. Some one drove a stake deep in the ground and they fastened the heavy shackle chain solid to the stake. By that time it was day, the soldiers and prisoners all ate breakfast about the same time. All the, Indians were happy as the evening before except the two that was staked out, they refused to eat as usual. Black. Jim was saying: "I wish I was dead. Why did I grow to manhood. I do not feel like I am among the living. I do wish I was dead. I hope that I may die soon. I hate these soldiers that look at me now when I am in chains and laugh at me. If I was foot loose and had a gun, I'd change you soldiers from laughing to crying." He was talking in his own language.