The Snakes had demanded the return of their people who had been captured during the war. This we refused unless they would go on to the Reservation. These two circumstances had produced bad blood.
Before our departure a Snake woman, the wife of a half-breed, gave us warning that an attempt would be made to capture our party while on the way to Camp Warner. I made requisition for an escort of troops, which was honored, and we took up the line of march. We passed safely through this wild, unsettled region, and, on arrival at Warner, O-che-o gathered his people, and, without escort, we continued the journey to Yai-nax.
We enjoyed the rare spectacle of seeing the medicine-man practise on a patient who was taken suddenly ill and supposed to be poisoned. The treatment was novel. He made a sage-brush fire, and waited until it had burned down to embers. Meanwhile the patient was divested of clothing. The assistants of the doctor formed in a circle around the fire, and four men were selected to manage the victim of this savage practice. The prayers, songs and dances commenced simultaneously, increasing in earnestness. The patient was lying, with his face downward, on a blanket, with a slight covering over him. The medicine-man made a sign of readiness, when the sick man was seized by the four Indians, by the
hands and feet, and, amid the noise of prayers and songs and dances, he was drawn forward and backward, face down, over the hot coals, until he was burnt the length of his body, so that great blisters were raised soon after.
This man did not wince or mutter or shrink from the fearful ordeal. His faith made him whole. A day or two after he was apparently well.
Belonging to O-che-o’s band was one named “Big Foot,” who would, with a cane four feet long, capture sage-brush hare, incredible as it may seem, when the fleetness of these animals is considered. He would actually run on to them and knock them down with the cane.
Our route from Warner to Yai-nax led us over a high, dry country, with occasional groves of mountain mahogany, or spruce, the whole great plateau being from four to five thousand feet above the sea level. Small lakes lay basking in summer’s sun or covered with winter’s ice. They are bountifully supplied with fish of the trout species.
On the day before our arrival we were met by a delegation of Klamath Indians, who came out to meet and give us welcome. It is a beautiful custom among Indians to send in runners to announce the approach of visitors, and then messengers are returned, or perhaps, as in this instance, the chief and his head men go in person to meet them.
They were impatient to “look into the eyes and see the tongue” of the new superintendent. Whether the Indians of our party had telegraphed our coming, or sent runners in advance, I do not now remember. The great Caucasian race justly honors the names of
Franklin, Morse, and Field. These people of whom I write had been using fire as a medium of communication for untold generations. Spiritualism is also common among them.