The same author who has been so freely quoted states as follows regarding some of the superstitions and beliefs of the Modocs: * * *

Taking Revenge on Marauding Snakes VI One Bad Tale From Canyon City History VII Col. Thompson's First Newspaper Venture VIII History of the Modoc Indians IX The Ben Wright Massacre X Treaty With the Modocs Made XI Battle in the Lava Beds XII The Peace Commission's Work XIII

I understood this when, years after in the first battle in the lava beds with the Modocs, I asked General Wheaton to signal to Colonel Bernard to cease firing and I would charge with the volunteers.

Of all the aboriginal races of the continent the Modocs stand pre-eminent as the most fierce, remorseless, cunning and treacherous.

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 massacre" the Modocs were ever the cruel, relentless foe of the white man, murdering and pillaging without other pretext and without mercy.

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.

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.

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.

While the above events were transpiring, Dave Hill, a Klamath Indian, swam the river and drove in all the Modocs' horses.

The bottom of the bluff was finally reached and word passed back that the Modocs had captured and held the summit.

The Indians were confident the Modocs had killed the guards left there in the morning and held the top of the bluff.

Of course they raved and ranted, declaring that we were worse than the Modocs, but when they saw the tents of the regulars and blankets of the volunteers being pulled down and rolled up they came to me and asked what it meant.

I told them that we had been ordered to the mouth of Lost River on Tule Lake to protect the Oregon settlers, and that the regulars were going also, but that Gen. Wheaton was going to leave a detail at the Fairchilds ranch and that if they did not feel safe with the Modocs they could move up there.

That night his signal fires informed Gen. Davis that the Modocs had deserted the lava beds.

But the Modocs had not seen Donald McKay and his Wascos leave the camp the evening before, nor were they aware that he was within striking distance that morning, at a most critical time.

Hearing the firing and yells McKay left his pack animals, and under the leadership of Captain George, chief of the Wascos, attacked the Modocs in the rear.

The Modocs, or renegades were now out of the lava beds, and with soldiers and volunteers practically surrounding them, and with dissensions in their own camp, the band broke up.

" Among the Modocs a wife who violated her husband's property rights in her "chastity," was disembowelled in public, as Bancroft informs us (I., 350).

Life Among the Modocs (228).

He did not, as a matter of course, find anything resembling them among the Modocs.

It is of the Modocs of this region that Joaquin Miller wrote that "Indians have their loves, and as they have but little else, these fill up most of their lives."

In Joaquin Miller's narrative of his experience with the Modocs, the account of his own marriage is of special interest.

Miller, Joaquin: Life Among the Modocs.

Modocs: Dangers of adultery; Why they marry; Marriage ceremony.