The indications were, that the time for saying prayers had come, at least for Steele and Bill Dad.
Captain Jack and Scar-faced Charley demonstrated that manhood and fidelity may be found even in Indian camps. They, without saying in words that Steele and Bill Dad were in danger, told them to sleep in Jack’s camp, and proceeded to prepare the night-bed. Our messengers trustingly lay down to rest, if not to sleep, while Scar-faced Charley, Jack and Queen Mary, stood guard over their friends.
Several times in the night, Steele looked from under the blankets, to see each time his self-appointed guards standing sentinel in silence.
All night long they remained at their posts, and it was well for Steele and Bill Dad that they did; otherwise they would have been sent off, that very night, to the other side of the “dark river.”
The morning came and the council reassembled; the signs of murder were not wanting. Angry words and dark hints told the feeling.
Steele, relying on the friendship of Captain Jack and Scarface Charley, proposed that he would return to the head-quarters of the commission, and bring with them all the commissioners the next day.
This strategy was successful. He was permitted to depart on his promise to lead the commission to the Modoc slaughter-pen. On his arrival at our camp he looked some older than when he left the morning previous.
He admitted that he had been mistaken, detailing, without attempt at concealment, that he had escaped only by promising that the commission should visit the Lava Beds unarmed; but with candor declared that if they went they would be murdered; that the Modocs were desperate, and were disposed to recall the Ben Wright affair, and dwell upon it in a way that indicated their thirst for revenge.
The department at Washington was informed by telegraph, and also by letter, of the progress of negotiations from time to time, and always, without exception, by the advice and approbation of Gen. Canby.
On Steele’s return, as Chairman of the Peace Commission,