Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/294

224 met by twelve Indians, who had not seen us, nor us them, until within a hundred yards of each other. There was only one thing to do and that was to fight, for they were directly between us and the command, and the braver we were I thought the better; so I gave orders to charge, but the Indians did not stand fire. We got three of them the first round and in another hundred yards we got three more, but their horses being fresh and ours somewhat jaded, they outran us and got away. These were the first Klamath Indians. I had got close, enough to, to see how their moccasins were made, and for a person engaged in the business that I was then in, it was quite essential to be able to tell the tribe an Indian belonged to by his track. And here I will state that not any two tribes cut and make their moccasins alike, and at that time I could tell an Indian by his track, if he belonged to any tribe that I was familiar with.

Here we laid over three days to let our horses rest up a little. While here we had all the fish that we wanted to eat, for the lake was literally full of the finest in the land.

In a southwesterly direction we could see, by looking through our field glasses, a large valley, which Col. Elliott thought to be the country which he was ordered to go to.

The second day after leaving Clear Lake we struck another lake. We did not name it, but it has since been known as Tule Lake, and is the outlet of Lost river, but has no visible outlet itselt. Here we laid over two days, after which we pulled out up the valley. Two days more and we were at Klamath Lake, and here Col. Elliott es-