Wigwam and War-path Or the Royal Chief in Chains Part 31

Let those whose lives are spent where they are protected by the strong arm of law, go with me for a day, while we hunt up the victims of this wholesale murder.

Perhaps, if we are honest, and our hearts are open to conviction of truth, and we are actuated by the impulses of Christian sympathy, we may suspend our charitable emotions for the "n.o.ble red man," by the time we hear the dull thud of the clods at Linkville cemetery mingle with the sobs and shrieks of the widows and orphans.

From one who was with a party who went out on this sorrowful mission, I learned something of the scenes that met them.

On arriving at the grove of timber where Brotherton was killed, they found his body lying stark and cold, with his gla.s.sy eyes wide open. He had been pierced by four Modoc bullets. Near him was found his axe, with the handle painted with his own blood. Then another was found on a wagon, lying across the coupling poles, with his face downwards. He, too, was stripped of his clothing.

Another was found a few rods from his work, with his bowels beside him, and his heart taken from his body, and hacked to pieces. This was the work of Hooker Jim.

Thus the party went on from one to another, until thirteen bodies were found. Some of them were off from roads, where they had evidently run in their attempts to escape.

While the kind-hearted settlers were performing this sad duty, they were continually on the lookout for an attack. Let us follow this heavily-laden train of wagons, and be with them when they arrive at Linkville. Can human language depict the agony of that hour? We may tell of the outburst of grief, when the widows gather around that solemn train, preparing to unload its ghastly freight, and how, with frantic movements, they threw themselves on the remains of husband, brother and father. But we may not tell of the grief that overwhelmed their hearts in that darkest hour, when beholding loved ones mangled and mutilated by the hands that had so often received gifts from them, now so stiff and cold in death.

There are moments in life when the great fountains seem broken up as if by some terrific explosion, until even the very streams that otherwise would flow out are dried up.

Oh, how dark the world becomes to the wife and mother when the sunlights of life go out, and they stand amid the gloom, unable to recognize the hand of our heavenly Father!

Slowly and sadly the sorrowing friends start up the hill with the remains of Boddy and Schiere, while the bereaved and heart-broken widows follow the sad funeral pageant.

How can we bear to hear the cry of anguish that parts their lips when the first clod of earth falls, with sepulchral noise, on the coffin lids that cover the faces of their dead forever!

My humane, kind-hearted reader, who has a soul overflowing with kindness that goes out for "Lo! the poor Indian," look on this scene a moment, and in your mind exchange your happy home for a cabin on the frontier wilds, where you meet these Indian people, and where, from the fulness of a great heart overflowing with "good will to man," you have uttered only kind words, while you shared your homely fare with them in sympathy for their low estate. Remember how often you have almost ruined your own family that you might in part compensate them for their lost homes; how you have dropped from your hands your own duties as a wife or mother that you might teach these dark, sad-eyed savage women the little art of housewifery.

Think how many hours you have labored teaching them the ways of civil life in dress and manners; while your memory of childhood's lessons in Christianity reconciled you to the labor and the sacrifice with this comforting a.s.surance, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it also unto me." Remember all these, and then gaze on the dark emblems of sorrow that envelop Mrs. Boddy, Mrs. Schiere, Mrs. Brotherton, and tell me, have you still Christianity that enables you to say, "Thy will be done," nor let your lips breathe out a prayer for power to avenge your bursting heart? Will you censure now the brave and manly friends on whose arms these widows lean, while they go back to a home with the sunlight gone? If these friends, in sympathy with the bereaved, do swear to antic.i.p.ate a tardy justice, do you still have hard words for the pioneers who brave danger and drink deeply from the fountain of bitter grief when in madness they cry for revenge?

It is one thing to sit through a life-time under the persuasive eloquence of ministers who have never walked side by side with such sorrow, and gradually form an ideal or real monitor in the soul, until human nature seems lost in the divine power that prepares humanity for higher life, and until we think we can at all times, when smitten on one cheek, turn the other. It is quite another thing to break old family a.s.sociations, and, leaving the scenes of childhood behind you, with strong and brave hearts, open the way for emigration; plant way-marks that point to a future of prosperity; sow the seeds of civilization in unbroken wilds, fairly to represent your race before the savage, and live in the exercise of a religious faith that honest dealings and the overshadowing exercise of brotherly love will be a sure guaranty of final reward. To go out on the bleak plains of Lost river, and by industry and economy transform the sage-brush deserts into fruitful fields, to rear the unpretentious cabins, and open your doors to the thirsty and hungry of every race and color, and then, when you have done all this, to stand in your cabin-door and smile back at the waving fields, and listen to the lowing herds, while you rejoice in your instrumentality in making the great transformation; looking hopefully to a future, when, from neighboring valleys, shall come up sounds of friendly recognition; longing for the hour when you may catch sight of children returning from the country school, and for the advent of the itinerant minister, who will bring with him a charter under which you may work toward a brotherhood, whose ties will bind on earth and reunite in heaven,--when, suddenly, more direful than mountain torrents or heaving earthquake, comes athwart your life a scene like that enacted on Lost river, _November 30th, 1872_.

That scene, with all its horrors, has been repeated over and over again, and will continue to be until this Government of ours shall come squarely up to the performance of its duty, and shall have clothed worthy men with power to do and make good its promises of fair and impartial justice to each and all those who sit down under the shadow of its flag.

Tell me truly, do you still feel scorn for the frontier people, whose lives are embellished with episodes and tragedies like these that I have here painted in plainest colors, and nothing borrowed from imagination,--no, not even using half the reality in making up the picture?

My words cannot call back the dead, or flood the rude cabins of the stricken and bereaved with sunshine and hope. No. There, on the hill, beside Linkville, the thirteen little mounds lie out in winter's storm and summer's sun; and they who prematurely sleep there will wake _no more_.

There, on the plains, stand the vacant cabins where these once lived.

There, walking with the spirits of the departed by their sides, the widows go; while orphans' faces wear reproach, in saddened smiles, against a Government that failed to deal justly, and who, with light and careless hand, pointed out its ministers of law without thinking once how much of human woe and misery might be avoided by a few well-studied words of command.

The dead are buried, and the notes of coming strife succeed those of bitter wailing; the winter's sun gleams from the bra.s.s mountings of officers; the zephyrs of the mountain are mingling with martial music; the great plains of sage brush are glittering with polished bayonets. The United States are at length aroused. The State of Oregon, _too_, is waxing very wroth. The doom of the Modocs is sealed; and _war!_ _war!_ _war!_ is the word.

From the half-dozen little military posts in the Lake country is seen coming a grand army of--well--_two hundred soldiers_. "That's enough to eat up Jack's little band. Keep cool, my dear friends. Let 'em go for 'em.

They need a _lickin'_ bad. There won't be a grease-spot left of 'em."

(Such was the speech in a hotel not far from Linkville, Oregon.)

"Look-er here, stranger, I'll bet you a hundred head of cows, that Captain Jack licks them there two hundred soldiers like h--l; so I will. I know what I'm talking about, _I do_. I tried them Modoc fellows long time ago; they won't lick worth a d--m; so _they won't_. If Frank Wheaton goes down there a puttin' on style like a big dog in 'tall rye', he'll catch h--l; _so he will_. I'm going down just to _see_ the _fun_."

"You're a crazy old fool. Frank Wheaton with two hundred soldiers will wipe 'em out 'fore breakfast," suggested a listener.

"Look-er here if I'm crazy the cows aint; come come, if you think I'm crazy, come, up with the squivlents, and you can go into the stock-raisin'

business cheap. _You can._

"Major Jackson went down there tother day with forty men, and Jack hadn't but fourteen bucks with him, and he licked Jackson out of his boots in no time, and that was in open ground, and Jackson had the drap on the Ingens at that; and by thunder he got the worst lickin' a man ever got in this neck woods; _so he did_. Then another thing, Captain Jack aint on open ground now; not by a d----d sight. He is in the all-firedest place in the world. You've been to the 'Devil's garden,' at the head of Sprague river, haven't you? Well, that place aint a patchen to that ere place where the Injuns is now. I've been there, and I tell you, it's nearly litenin', all rocks and caves, and you can't lead a horse through it in a week,--and then the Injuns knows every inch of the ground, and when they get in them there caves, why it taint no use talking, I tell you, you can't kill nary an Ingen,--_you can't_. I'm a-going down just to _see_ the _fun_."

The reporter who furnished me the foregoing speeches did not learn whether a bet was made, or whether any army officers overheard the talk; but the truth is, those who had this nice little breakfast job on hand were somewhat of the opinion of the fellow whose "cows were not crazy, if he was." They were willing to have _help_.

This little Modoc affair was a favorable thing for Oregon and California, in more ways than one. To the politician it was a windfall; for no matter what the cause of war may have been, it is always popular to have been in favor of the last war. It makes opportunity for brave men to win laurels and undying fame. It clothes their tongues with themes for public harangue until the last war is superseded by another. Then again it was a _heroic_ thing to rush up to the recruiting office and _volunteer_ to _whip the Modocs_.

It is not at all likely that the movement of armies over railroads, or toll-roads, or steamboat lines, was a desirable thing for a country where there was no money in it. Then no man was base enough to wish for war for motives so mean; neither could it be possible that any sane man, with ordinary judgment, could see any speculations or chances for greenbacks in war.

Californians did intimate that the Oregonians were a little mercenary in their anxiety for war; but with what unanimity our press repelled the mean insinuation!

_Our Governor_ very promptly sent forward two or three companies of volunteers,--California, _but one_.

Listen, ye winds, to the neighing steeds and clashing sabres, and see the uniformed officers and the brave boys, all with faces turned toward the Lava Beds, going down to vindicate the honor of the State whose soil had been _invaded_ by a ruthless savage foe.

The regulars are in camp near the Modocs, waiting for the volunteers to come up. They come, with banners flying, and steeds prancing, and hearts beating triumphant at the prospect of a fight.

Some of these men were living several years ahead, when they could from "the stump" tell how they bared their bosoms to the Modoc hail; how they carried away Modoc scalps; how the ground was bathed in mingled blood of Modoc and white men.

The army now numbering four hundred, all told, of enlisted men, approaches the Lava Beds. One or two companies encamp at Fairchild's. They drill; they go through the mimic charges; they espy a few Modoc women and children encamped on the creek near Fairchild's house,--they propose to take them in. "Knits make lice,--let's take them, boys,--here goes."

A middle-sized grey-eyed man, with his whiskers dyed by twenty years'

labor on "the coast," steps out and says, "No you don't, not yet. _Take me first._ No man harms defenceless women where I am, while I am standing on my perpendiculars."

"Who are you?" says one fine-looking young fellow.

"Try me, and you will find out that I am John Fairchild." These brave fellows had not lost any Indians just then, they hadn't. Bah!

"Who are your officers?" said Fairchild.

The information was furnished, and soon the grey-eyed man was reading a chapter not found in the Talmud, or the Bible either. As reported, it was _eloquent_, though not _cla.s.sical_.

Preparations were being completed for a forward movement. One-half the army was to move to the attack from the south, while the other was to move down from the north. The 16th of January, 1873, the two wings were within a few miles on either side. Orders were given to be in motion before daylight the following morning. Some spicy little colloquies were had between the members of the volunteer companies; some, indeed, between officers.

One brave captain of volunteers said to another, "I have but one fear, and that is that I can't restrain my men, they are so eager to get at 'em; they will eat the Modocs up raw, if I let 'em go."

"Don't fret," said Fairchild; "you can hold them; they wont be hard to keep back when the Modocs open fire."

"I say, Jim, are you going to carry grub?"

"No. I am going to take Modoc _Sirloin_ for my dinner."

"I think," said a burly-looking fellow, "that I'll take mine _rare_."

Another healthy-looking chap said he intended capturing a good-looking squaw for a--dishwasher. (Good-looking squaws wash dishes better than homely ones.)

A number of humane, chivalrous, civilizing, kind people intended to capture some little _Ingens_ for servants. One fellow declared that Captain Jack's _pacing hoss_ should be his.

To have heard the camp talk the night before the battle, you would have supposed that sundown, next day, would find these brave men loaded with Indian plunder and military glory, going toward home in fine style, with great speeches in rehearsal to deliver to the gaping crowds, who would hang, with breathless interest, on the words that they would deal out with becoming modesty.