Reminiscences of a Pioneer Part 4

She replied without recognizing me that I would have to go through camp.

As I pa.s.sed around the wagon I came face to face with Judge Lemley's wife. Her home had been my home for years and next to my mother and sisters I reverenced her above all women of earth. She looked at me. I bowed and she nodded her head and I pa.s.sed on. No sooner had I pa.s.sed out of sight than Mrs. McDaniels, the first lady I met, ran to Mrs.

Lemley and said: "Did you see that man?" "O," replied Mrs. Lemley, "it was only some old lousy hunter." I had made my escape and no one had recognized me. I was jubilant, happy. But horror of horrors! At a turn of the road I came full on a whole bevy, flock, troop or herd of young girls, and at their head was my "best girl." I here submit and affirm, that had I foreseen this, rivers, mountains, grizzly bears, Indians, all the dangers of the wild would have had no terrors for me at that moment.

My dogs closed round me and the girls at sight of that "old man of the woods," that awful apparition, ceased their laughter. With sobered faces they s.h.i.+ed around me as I strode past, and when fairly safe broke into a run for camp. I heard them running, and in imagination could see their scared faces. But I was safe--no one had recognized me and I was again happy.

Arriving at Mr. Allen's, I related to him the story of my misfortunes.

He trimmed my hair, gave me a shave and after changing my "clothes," I once more a.s.sumed the semblance, as Mrs. Allen expressed it, "of a Christian man."

That evening I saddled a horse and rode back to the camp. I began then to see the full humor of the whole affair, but it required an hour to convince them that I was really the strange apparition that pa.s.sed through camp that morning.

Chapter VII.

Colonel Thompson's First Newspaper Venture.

I remained at the home of Mr. Allen a few days, making frequent visits, you may be sure, to the camp of my friends. I then returned to our camp at the hot springs. My brother had become quite strong and my other brother then decided to return to the valley. Left alone, we indulged in long rambles in the mountains. Taking a pair of blankets each, and baking up a lot of bread, we would strike out. We never knew where we were going, but wandered wherever fancy led. These tramps often lasted a week or ten days. If our bread gave out we simply went without bread until our return to camp. During one of these trips we ascended one of the Three Sisters, snow mountains standing together and reaching to the realms of the clouds. Like mighty sentinels, white as the driven snow, they const.i.tute one of the grandest sights to be seen on this or any other continent. To the north of these mountains and in a valley formed by the angle of the three mountains, we explored the largest glacier to be found in the United States. In this manner the months wore away until the approach of the fall storms admonished us that our wandering life must come to a close, but we had found that which we sought, perfect health. When we went to the mountains in the spring my brother weighed 84 pounds, and when we reached Eugene City on our return he weighed 165, nearly doubling his weight. I had also gained heavily, in fact, nearly 50 pounds. I mention this that others seeking that most precious of all blessings, perfect health, may know how and where to find it--by simply going back to nature.

Soon after my return to civilization I embarked in my first newspaper venture. I was employed in the office as compositor and foreman and at the expiration of the first month had to take the "plant, fixtures and good will," for my pay. In fact, I was given the office on a promise to run the paper and keep it alive. I so far succeeded that after a year and a half I sold out, clearing $1200. The paper, the Eugene City Guard, is still in existence.

From there I went to Roseburg and started the Plaindealer. In this I had the moral support and hearty good will of General Joseph Lane, as well as other citizens of the county. My success was phenomenal, my subscription list running up to 1200 in two years. But as in all else in this world, success was not attained without gaining the enmity and bitter hatred of my would-be rivals in business. Theirs was an old established paper, conducted by two brothers, Henry and Thomas Gale.

They soon saw their business slipping away and sought to regain it by indulging in abuse of the coa.r.s.est character. I paid no further attention to their attacks than to occasionally poke fun at them. One Sat.u.r.day evening I met one of the brothers in the post office. He began an abusive harangue and attempted to draw a pistol. I quickly caught his hand and struck him in the face. Bystanders separated us and he left. I was repeatedly warned that evening to be on my guard, but gave the matter little concern. The next morning, Sunday, June 11, 1871, I went to my office as was my custom, to write my letters and attend to some other matters before going to church. On leaving the office I was joined by a young friend, Mr. Virgil Conn. As we proceeded down the street towards the post office I saw the brothers standing talking on the street. One looked up and saw me, evidently spoke to his brother, and they then started toward me. I saw at once that it was to be a fight and that I must defend myself. Some said I could have avoided a meeting by turning in a different direction. Probably I could, at least for a time, but I had started to the post office and there I intended to go. As we approached the young men, one of them dropped behind, and as I pa.s.sed the first one he dealt me a blow with a heavy cane. At the same instant the other drew a pistol and fired, the bullet taking effect in my side and pa.s.sing partly through. Stunned by the blow on my cheek, I reeled and drawing my pistol fired point blank at the breast of the one who had shot me. I was then between the men, and turning on the one with the cane, he threw up his hands, as if to say "I am unarmed." As I again turned he quickly drew his revolver and shot me in the back of the head, and followed it up with another shot which was aimed at the b.u.t.t of my ear. I felt the muzzle of the revolver pressed against my ear, and throwing up my head the bullet entered my neck and pa.s.sed up through my mouth and tongue and lodged back of my left eye. As I rushed at him he fired again, the bullet entering the point of my shoulder while another entered my body. That was his last shot.

I was taken to my home in a blanket and few thought that I would live to reach it. I was not, however, done for yet, and the next Thursday was out riding with one of my physicians. The affair created the wildest excitement, a noted surgeon, Dr. Sharples, coming from Eugene City to attend me. Throughout the Eastern States there was various comment by various publications, referring to the affair as "The Oregon Style." I refer to the matter here because of the many distorted and unfair stories that have appeared from time to time. It is in no spirit of braggadocio, but simply to give the facts. That I deplored the affair, and deeply, too, I freely confess, but only for the necessity which compelled me to defend my life.

On the following February 1 received an offer to take charge of the Salem Mercury. Leaders of the party, among them three ex-Senators, the Governor of the State and many others prominent in the affairs of Oregon, purchased the paper and plant and tendered me a bill of sale for the same. Ex-Senator Nesmith, ex-Senator Harding, Governor Grover, ex-Governor Whitaker, General Joseph Lane and many others urged me to the step. They argued that I could unite all the factions of the party in support of a party paper at the capital of the State. To a young man scarcely twenty-three this was a tempting and flattering offer. I sold my paper, therefore, at Roseburg and with $4000 in money and good paper, and a bill of sale of an office costing $2500, started to Salem. My success there as a newspaper man was all that could be desired. A large circulation was rapidly built up, and a daily as well as weekly started.

In November of the same year occurred the first outbreak of the Modoc Indians and a score of settlers and a few soldiers had been killed.

Governor Grover had ordered out two companies of volunteers under General John E. Ross, a veteran of the Rogue River war, to a.s.sist the regular army in quelling the insurrection. The outbreak, only for the butchery of the citizens along the Lost river and Tule lake, was not regarded as at all serious, as a few weeks would suffice to crush or destroy the savages. But as weeks rolled on and still no surrender, nor even a fight, the Governor became uneasy, since he could not understand the delay. Finally, early in January, Judge Prim arrived from Jackson county and had a conference with the Governor. It was scarcely 9 o'clock in the morning when Mr. Gilfrey, private secretary to the Governor, came to my office with a message that Governor Grover wished to see me at his office at once. When I arrived there I found the Governor, Judge Prim and General John F. Miller in consultation. The Governor explained to me that there were stories of needless waste of time, that the Indians had not been attacked, though there were 450 men within a few miles of their camp, that hints of graft were afloat. Would I go in company with General Miller and when could I start? I replied that I would go and by the eleven o'clock train if General Miller was ready.

Perhaps here is a proper place for a short history of the Modoc Indians; their long series of murders and ma.s.sacres--a series of appalling crimes that have given to their country the name of "the dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground of the Pacific." Of all the aboriginal races of the continent the Modocs stand pre-eminent as the most fierce, remorseless, cunning and treacherous. From the day the white man first set foot upon his soil the Modoc has been a merciless foe with whom there could be no peace. The travelers through his country were forced to battle for their lives from the day his country was entered until the boundary was pa.s.sed. Trains of immigrants, consisting of men, women and children, worn and weary with the trials and hards.h.i.+ps of the plains, were trapped and butchered. The number of these victims mount up into the hundreds and const.i.tute one of the saddest chapters in the annals of American pioneers.

Chapter VIII.

History of the Modoc Indians.

Voltaire describes his countrymen as "half devil and half monkey," and this description applies with equal force to the Modoc tribe of Indians.

In general appearance they are far below the tribes of the northern country. They did not possess the steady courage of the Nez Perces, nor the wild dash of the Sioux, but in cunning, and savage ferocity they were not excelled even by the Apaches. In war they relied mainly on cunning and treachery, and the character of their country was eminently suited for the display of these tactics.

Our first knowledge of the Modocs was when they stole upon the camp of Fremont in 1845 at a spring not far from the present site of the now prosperous and thriving village of Dorris. It was here that Fremont suffered the loss of some of his men, including two Delaware Indians, in a daylight attack, and it was here that he was overtaken by a courier and turned back to a.s.sist in the conquest of California. From that day to the day when Ben Wright, with a handful of Yreka miners, broke their war power in the so-called "Ben Wright ma.s.sacre" the Modocs were ever the cruel, relentless foe of the white man, murdering and pillaging without other pretext and without mercy. It has been estimated, by those best capable of giving an opinion, that from first to last not less than three hundred men, women and children had been relentlessly murdered by their hands, up to the beginning of the last war.

The sh.o.r.es of their beautiful lakes and tributary streams are scattered over with the graves and bleaching bones of their victims. Even among neighboring tribes they were known and dreaded for their cunning duplicity and savage ferocity. They are yet known among the Klamaths, Pits, and Piutes as a foe to be dreaded in the days of their power, and these people often speak of them in fear, not because they were brave in open field, but because of their skulking and sudden attacks upon unsuspecting foes.

During the early 50's many immigrants, bound for Southern Oregon and Northern California, pa.s.sed through their country, traveling the road that pa.s.sed round the north end of Rett, or Tule Lake, and crossed Lost river at the then mouth of that stream on a natural bridge of lava. A short distance from where the road comes down from the hills to the lake is the ever-memorable "b.l.o.o.d.y point." This place has been appropriately named and was the scene of some of the most sickening tragedies that blacken the annals of this or any other country. At this point the rim rock comes down to the edge of the waters of the lake, and receding in the form of a half wheel, again approaches the water at a distance of several hundred yards, forming a complete corral. Secreted among the rocks, the Indians awaited until the hapless immigrants were well within the corral, and then poured a shower of arrows and bullets among them.

The victims, all unconscious of danger, taken by surprise, and surrounded on all sides, with but the meager shelter of their wagons, were at the mercy of their savage foes.

In 1850, an immigrant train was caught in this trap, and of the eighty odd men, women and children, but one escaped to tell the awful tale. On the arrival of the news at Jacksonville, Colonel John E. Ross raised a company of volunteers among the miners and hastened to the scene of butchery. Arriving at b.l.o.o.d.y Point, the scene was such as to make even that stern old veteran turn sick. The men had died fighting, and their naked bodies lay where they fell. Those of the women not killed during the fight were reserved for a fate ten thousand times worse. The mutilated remains scattered about the ground were fearfully swollen and distorted and partly devoured by wolves and vultures, little children, innocent and tender babes, torn from their mothers' arms, had been taken by the heels and their brains dashed out against the wagon wheels, killed like so many blind puppies. One young woman had escaped out of the corral but had been pursued and butchered in a most inhuman manner.

Her throat was cut from ear to ear, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s cut off, and otherwise mutilated. Her body was found a mile and a half from the wrecked and half-burned train, and was discovered by her tracks and those of her pursuers.

Again in 1851 Captain John F. Miller raised a company of volunteers at Jacksonville and went out to meet and escort the immigrant trains through the country of the Modocs. Arriving at b.l.o.o.d.y point at daylight one morning and finding a train surrounded, he at once vigorously attacked the savages and drove them away, with the loss of several of their warriors. His timely arrival prevented a repet.i.tion of the previous year's horror. The savages were followed into the lava beds, but here he was compelled to give up the pursuit, as further advance into this wilderness was to court disaster. The train had been surrounded several days and a number of its members killed and wounded.

An escort was sent with the train beyond Lost river and then returned to guard the pa.s.s until all the immigrants should have pa.s.sed through.

During Captain Miller's stay here his scouts discovered smoke coming out of the tules several miles north and west of the peninsula. Tule Lake at that time was a mere tule swamp and not the magnificent body of water we see today. Taking a number of canoes captured from the Indians to lead the way, and mounting his men on their horses, the spot was surrounded at daylight and a large number of women and children captured.

Notwithstanding many were dressed in b.l.o.o.d.y garments, they were all well treated. They were held prisoners until the company was ready to leave, when they were turned loose.

Another company of immigrants was murdered on Crooked creek not far from the ranch of Van Bremer Bros. on the west and south side of lower Klamath lake. Who they were, where they came from, how many in the train, will ever remain an impenetrable mystery. Waiting friends "back in the States" have probably waited long for some tidings of them, but tidings, alas, that never came. We only know that the ill-fated train was destroyed, the members murdered and their wagons burned. Scarface Charley told John Fairchilds that when he was a little boy the Indians killed a great many white people at this point. The charred remains of the wagons and moldering bones of the owners were yet visible when I visited the spot during the Modoc war. Charley said that two white girls were held captives and that one morning while encamped at Hot creek the Indians got into a dispute over the owners.h.i.+p of one of them and to end matters the chief caught her by the hair and cut her throat. Her body, Charley said, was thrown into the rim rock above the Dorris house.

Hearing the story in February, 1873, while we were encamped at Van Bremer's ranch, Colonel C. B. Bellinger and I made a search for the body of the ill-fated girl. We found the skull and some bones but nothing more. Enough, however, to verify the story told by Charley. What became of the other Charley did not know, but her fate can better be imagined than described.

Chapter IX.

The Ben Wright Ma.s.sacre.

This so-called ma.s.sacre has been the source of endless controversy, and during the progress of the Modoc war afforded Eastern sentimentalists grounds for shedding crocodile tears in profusion. They found in this story ample grounds for justification of the foul butchery of General Canby and the Peace Commission. According to their view, these "poor persecuted people" were merely paying the white man back in his own coin, and a lot more such rot.

According to this story, Ben Wright had proposed a treaty and while the Indians were feasting, all unconscious of intended harm, were set upon and ninety of their warriors murdered in cold blood. Captain Jack's father, they said, was among the victims, and it was to avenge this wrong that Canby and the Peace Commission were murdered under a flag of truce. The story was without other foundation than the b.l.o.o.d.y battle fought by Ben Wright and his Yreka volunteers with the Modoc tribe during the fall of 1852. I will here give the true story as detailed to me by Frank Riddle, one of Ben Wright's men, and which I believe is absolutely true.

In the fall of 1852 Ben Wright raised a company of thirty-six men around Yreka and went out to guard the immigrants through the country of the Modocs. The company arrived in time and safely escorted all trains past the danger point. The lesson taught the year before by Captain Miller had instilled into the savage heart a wholesome fear of the white man's rifle and revolver. They dared not attack the ever-watchful white men openly, but determined to effect by strategy what they dared not attempt in the open field. Accordingly they sent a messenger to Wright proposing a treaty. The messenger, among other things, told Wright that they held two captive white girls, which they wished to surrender as an evidence of good faith. Ben Wright was anxious to rescue the girls and readily consented to a treaty, and promised to kill a beef and have a feast. The Indians in considerable numbers came to the camp, headed by the chief.

Wright was then camped on the peninsula, a place admirably adapted to guard against surprise. A feast was had and all went well. The white girls were to be surrendered three days later at the mouth of Lost river, to which place the white men moved, followed by the Indians. The latter were very friendly and exerted themselves to win the confidence of the white men. Three days pa.s.sed but no white girls showed up. The chief a.s.sured Wright that they were coming, that they were a long way off and would be on hand two days later. In the meantime the watchful white men observed that the numbers of the Indians had more than doubled and more and more were coming with each succeeding day. They became suspicious and their suspicions ripened into a certainty that treachery was meditated. At the expiration of the two days Ben Wright informed his men of his plans. He was satisfied that the girls would never be surrendered, but that the Indians, now outnumbering them five to one, intended a ma.s.sacre. Accordingly he told his men to quietly make ready; that he was going to the chief and if he refused to surrender the girls he would kill him then and there. He warned his men to pay no attention to him, that he would make his way out as best he could; that they must open fire at the instant his pistol rang out; that they were in a desperate situation and must resort to desperate measures or all would be butchered then and there.

The morning was cool, Riddle said, and Ben Wright covered himself with a blanket, his head pa.s.sing through a hole in the middle, as was the custom of the time, the blanket answering the place of an overcoat.

Underneath the blanket he carried a revolver in each hand. He went directly to the chief and demanded that he make his promises good. The chief told him plainly, insolently, that he would not do so, and never intended to do so; that he had men enough to kill the white men and that they were now in his power. But the wily old chief little dreamed of the desperate valor of the man before him, for no sooner had the chief's defy pa.s.sed his lips than Ben Wright shot him dead. Then firing right and left as he ran, he made his escape out of the Indian camp.

Meanwhile, as the first shot rang out from Wright's pistol his men opened a deadly fire with their rifles. For an instant, Riddle said, the savages formed a line and sent a shower of arrows over their heads, but they aimed too high and only one or two were slightly wounded. Dropping their rifles, Wright's men charged, revolvers in hand. This was too much for savage valor and what were left fled in terror. It was now no longer a battle. The savages were searched out from among the sage brush and shot like rabbits. Long poles were taken from the wickiups and those taking refuge in the river were poked out and shot as they struggled in the water. To avoid the bullets the Indians would dive and swim beneath the water, but watching the bubbles rise as they swam, the men shot them when they came up for air.

This is the true story of the "Ben Wright Ma.s.sacre." It was a ma.s.sacre all right, but did not terminate as the Indians intended. Riddle told me that about ninety Indians were killed in this fight. It broke the war power of the Modoc Indians as a tribe for all time, and from that day the white man could pa.s.s unvexed through the country of the Modocs.

There were probably isolated cases of murder, but nothing approaching war ever again existed in the minds of the Modocs.

Chapter X.

Treaty With the Modocs is Made.

On the 14th day of October, 1864, the Modocs entered into a treaty with the Federal government by which they ceded all rights to the Lost river and Tule lake country for a consideration of $320,000. In addition to this they were to receive a body of land on the Klamath reservation of 768,000 acres, or a little more than 420 acres for each man, woman and child. Immediately after the ratification of the treaty all the Modoc Indians moved to the lands allotted to them, where the tribe remained, and yet remains. This may be news to most of my readers, but it is a fact that the Modoc Indians as a tribe continued to keep faith with the government. The band under Captain Jack were merely renegades who, dissatisfied with their new home, left the reservation and went back to Lost river and Tule Lake. Jack himself was wanted for murder, and sought an asylum in the lava beds, or the country adjacent thereto, where he gathered around him renegades from other tribes--renegades outlawed by Indians and whites alike. Some of the Indians in Jack's band were from the Columbia river region, others from coast tribes, and all were outlaws. One of the leaders, Bogus Charley, was an Umpqua Indian and was raised by a white man named Bill Phips. He spoke good English and asked me about many of the old timers.

In securing his ascendancy over this band of outlaws Jack was a.s.sisted by his sister, "Queen Mary," so-called, who lived many years with a white man near Yreka. In the opinion of Captain I. D. Applegate. Mary was the brains of the murderous crew who gathered in the "hole in the wall," under her brother. She was the go-between for the Indians with the whites about Yreka, where they did their trading and where they supplied themselves with arms and ammunition, and it was through her that Judge Steele, a lawyer of Yreka, was interested in getting a reservation for them. Steele made a trip to Was.h.i.+ngton to plead their cause, and received a fee of $1000. He failed, but held out hope to his clients and urged them under no circ.u.mstances to go back to their lands at Klamath, advising them as counsel to take up lands in severalty under the pre-emption laws of the United States. It is charitable to suppose that Judge Steele did not foresee the disastrous consequences of his counsel, yet he knew that Jack was wanted at the Klamath agency for murder. In furtherance of his advice he wrote the following self-explanatory letter to Henry Miller, afterwards murdered in a most barbarous manner by the very men whom he had befriended:

Yreka, Sept. 19, 1872.

Mr. Henry F. Miller--Dear Sir: You will have to give me a description of the lands the Indians want. If it has been surveyed, give me the towns.h.i.+p, range, section and quarter-section. If not, give me a rude plat of it by representing the line of the lake and the line of the river, so that I can describe it . . . Mr. Warmmer, the County Surveyor, will not go out there, so I will have to send to Sacramento to get one appointed. Send an answer by an Indian, so that I can make out their papers soon. I did not have them pay taxes yet, as I did not know whether the land is surveyed and open for pre-emption.

Respectfully yours, E. Steele.

Other letters were written by Judge Steele to the Indians. One which was taken to Mrs. Body to read for them advised them not to go to Klamath, but to "remain on their Yreka farm," as he termed the Tule Lake and Lost river country, and told them they had as good a right to the lands as any one. He further told them to go to the settlers and compel them to give them written certificates of good character to show to the agents of the government, which they did, the settlers fearing to refuse.

Shortly after this, Mr. T. B. Odeneal, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, attempted to have a conference with Jack, who flatly refused, saying he was tired of talking; he wanted no white man to tell him what to do; that his friends and counselors at Yreka had told them to stay where they were.

Under these circ.u.mstances the settlers became alarmed and made the Superintendent promise that they should be notified before any attempt to use force was made. How that promise was carried out will appear later on. Early in November, after repeated attempts to induce the Indians under Jack to go peaceably back to the reservation, Superintendent Odeneal determined to turn the matter over to the military. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs directed him to put the Indians back, peaceably if he could, by force if he must. He then referred the whole matter to Major Jackson, then in command at Fort Klamath, who had at his disposal thirty-six men of Company B, First cavalry, and proceeded with his command to Linkville, where he was met by Captain I. D. Applegate, at that time connected with the Indian department and stationed at the Yainax reservation. Captain Jackson was warned by Applegate of the desperate character of the Indians, but informed him the force was sufficient in his opinion if proper precautions were taken. In the meantime Mr. Odeneal had sent his messenger, O. A. Brown, to notify the settlers. Instead he proceeded to the Bybee ranch, carefully concealing from all the proposed movements of the troops under Jackson. Afterwards when reproached by Mrs. Schira, whose husband, father and brothers had been murdered, he gave the heartless answer that he "was not paid to run after the settlers." After realizing the full extent of his conduct--conduct that could not be defended any other way--Brown attempted to cast the odium upon his superior, Mr. Odeneal. However, the latter had a copy of his letter of instructions, hence Brown lapsed into sullen silence.