The dead are buried, and the notes of coming strife succeed those of bitter wailing; the winter’s sun gleams from the brass 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.