“But the Modocs will all be doubly armed. They won’t keep their part of the compact; they never have, and they won’t now. Let John Fairchild go with us, him and me with a revolver each, and I will not interpose any more objections to going. Do this, and I pledge you my life that we bring our party out all right. I know Fairchild. I know he is a dead shot, and he and I can whip a dozen Indians in open ground with revolvers.”
“Brother Meacham, you and Fairchild are fighting men. We are going to make peace, not war. Let us go as we agreed, and trust in God.”
“But, doctor, God does not drop revolvers down just when and where you need them.”
“My dear brother, you are getting to be very irreligious. Put your trust in God. Pray more, and don’t think so much about fighting.”
“Doctor, I am just as much of a peace man as you are, and I am as good a friend as the Indians ever
had on this coast, and I know in whom to put my trust in the hour of peril; but I know these Modocs, and I know that they won’t keep their word, and I want to be ready for trouble if it comes. I don’t want to go unarmed.”
“The compact is to go unarmed, and I am not willing to jeopardize our lives by breaking the compact.”
“Well, since we must go, and I am to manage the talk, I will grant to them any demand they make, rather than give them an excuse; that is, if they are armed,—as I know they will be,—and more than five Indians will be there, too.”
Gen. Canby replied, “Mr. Meacham, I have had more or less connection with the Indian service for thirty years, and I have never made a promise that could not be carried out. I am not willing now to promise anything that we don’t intend to perform.”
“Nor I,” breaks in the doctor. “That is why Indians have no confidence in white men. I am not willing to have you make a promise that we don’t intend to keep.”