Page:The Indian History of the Modoc War.djvu/56



CHAPTER VI.

Captain Jack and his people all arrive safe in the Lava Beds. Captain Jack occupies the largest cave, known nowadays as Captain Jack's Stronghold. Indians all live in different caves. They make prep- arations for war.

After the Modocs all got well settled in the Lava Beds they took life easy for about two weeks, keeping two men on guard night and day. They did not intend to be caught nap- ping. They was expecting troops all the time. About mid- day, January 15, 1873, one of the Modoc guards saw a large body of horsemen about two miles west of their camp on a ridge. He reported to his chief. The chief ordered his men to prepare for battle. The enemy disappeared. The men that appeared on the ridge, was a company that was out on a scout- ing expedition, sent out by General Gillem, from John Fair- child's ranch near Hot Creek, California.

General Gillem had his headquarters at Fairchild's ranch. He had about two hundred soldiers under his command at that time. The scouting party returned to Gillem'' s headquar- ters late in the evening of the 1 5th and reported to the general that they had located the Indian camp. The general ordered a company of cavalrymen on the morning of the i6th to ad- vance on the Indians and rout them out of the Lava Beds, and chase them if they could get them started. Spare none. The troops started for the field of action, early morning of the 1 6th. They arrived at the foot of the hill on the south- west of the Tule Lake edge of the Lava Beds in the afternoon. The troops camped there for the night about one mile and a half from the stronghold. Before sundown a company of Oregon volunteers and some twenty or thirty Klamath Indians arrived, also made their camp alongside of the soldiers. The soldiers and volunteers put their guards out, two hundred yards from the camp.

The men after supper sat around their campfires, all dis- cussing the events of tomorrow, how they were going to whip the Indians. One volunteer says to his comrade : "Say, Jim,