Taking up our narrative, let us resume our journey to Klamath Agency, accompanied by O-che-o and a few of his head men; Tah-home and Ka-ko-na taking charge of the loose stock, and riding, for once in their lives, a la white people, side by side. This was a sad day to them; they were, human-like, more ardently in love than ever, as the hour for departure approached.
The route from Yai-nax to Klamath Agency follows down the valley of Sprague’s river for twenty miles, over rich prairies skirted with timber. To the eye it is a paradise, walled in on the north and south by ranges of mountains five miles apart, traversed by a stream of clear water, and covered with bunch-grass and wild flax. It is the natural pasture land of elk, who run in bands of fifty to one hundred over its beautiful plains. Leaving the river, the road crosses a range of low hills passing down to Williamson’s river,—a connecting link between the “Great Klamath Marsh” and “Big Klamath Lake.” At the crossing it is one hundred yards wide; the ford being on the crown of a rocky ledge of twenty feet in width, over which the water thirty inches’ depth runs very swiftly, and falls off about two feet into deeper water below. The Indians cross on their ponies without fear; but white men with trembling
limbs, with an Indian on each side. We made the trip with a silent prayer to Heaven for safety as we went through. Not so, however, with the driver of one of our six-mule teams. The wagon was partly loaded with infantry soldiers, who were returning to Fort Klamath from some duty, and had been granted the privilege of riding. The driver, when about midway, became dizzy, and for the moment panic-stricken and wild; drew the leaders’ line so strongly that, mule-like, they jumped off into the boiling flood below. The soldiers leaped from the wagon before it crossed the precipice.
Soon the six mules and the driver were struggling in thirty or forty feet depth of water. The wagon rolled over and over down the water-covered, rocky slope, finally resting on the bottom. The driver and five mules were saved by the heroism of a quiet little fellow named Zip Williams. He had driven his team through, and was out of danger. Seeing the other going over the falls, he quitted his own, and throwing off his boots, drawing his knife and clasping it between his teeth, he rushed among the struggling mass of floundering mules, and succeeded in cutting the harness, thereby liberating five of the animals. The remaining one, attached to the wagon tongue, being tall, would touch the bottom with his hind feet occasionally, and, with his head and front feet out of water a portion of the time, would plead earnestly for succor; but his struggles were so furious that even the heroic Zip could not extricate him. Those present witnessed with regret this brave old mule sink beneath the flood. The wagon and part of the harness were recovered, and also the “big-wheel mule;”
but the latter “was not of much account,” as Zip expressed it, “except to make a big Indian feast,” to which purpose he was applied.
From Williamson river our route lay through a heavy forest. The agency is situated on the east side of a small river which rises at the foot of a long ridge extending west to the Cascade Mountains. This stream runs several thousand inches of water, and would afford immense power. The buildings were made of logs, and are arranged in a row, one hundred feet apart, resembling one side of a street. The long row of twenty whitewashed houses fronting east was a welcome sight for those of our party who had for three months been almost entirely out of society, and, in fact, away from civilization.
Klamath Agency is new, it having been established in 1865; the Indians who occupy it numbering, in 1869 (the time of my first official visitation), fourteen hundred. They are “Klamaths,” “Modocs,” “Yahooshin,” “Snakes,” “Wal-pah-pas,” and “Shoshone Snakes.” The Klamaths number seven hundred. They were the original owners of the country; have never been engaged in wars against the white race.
They are a brave, enterprising, and ambitious people. In former times they were often in the warpath against other Indian tribes; and among their ancient enemies are those who now occupy the country in common with them.
The practice of calling the Indians together for a “big talk” on occasions of the visits of officials was also observed in this instance.
This agency has been under the management of Lindsay Applegate, of Oregon,—a man who was