Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/625

Rh from Jack's stronghold, so the soldiers did not have far to march. About sunrise the whole command marched down and turned loose on Jack, and were soon bombarding him in great shape. This was kept up for three days and nights, when Gen. Wheaton withdrew, having lost sixty men and something over twenty wounded, as I was told by Col. Miller afterwards, but Jack did not come out.

A short time after this Gen. Canby came over and took the entire command. He brought with him a minister by the name of Col. Thomas.

The second day after Gen. Canby arrived he asked Gen. Wheaton, in the presence of quite a number of officers, how many men Captain Jack had with him.

Gen. Wheaton said; "My chief scout could tell just the number that he has, but I think some sixty-three or sixty-four warriors."

"And you had fifteen hundred men in that three days' fight?"

Gen. Wheaton said he had.

"And you got whipped? There was bad management somewhere," said Canby; and he concluded he would take Captain Jack by storm, but postponed it for a month, this bringing it into the foggy weather in that country, and in that time of the year it is the foggiest country I ever saw. I have seen it for a week at a time in the lava bed that I could not tell an Indian from a rock when twenty paces away. And this was the kind of weather Gen. Canby was waiting for. He marched down to the lava bed and placed his howitzer on the hill about a quarter of a mile from Jack's