Schonchin, and because of the danger of hitting Tobey, for she is now interposing for his life, and, putting her hand on Schonchin’s pistol, turns it away again and again, while pleading, “Don’t kill him! don’t kill Meacham! He is the friend of the Indians.” Slolux joins Schonchin, and, with his gun, strikes the woman on the head, while Shacknasty, snatching it from him, says, “I’ll fetch him,” at the same time sitting down and taking deliberate aim. Meacham, striking his breast with his left hand, shouts, “Shoot me there, you cowardly red devil!” Tobey strikes down the gun. Shacknasty threatens her, and again takes aim and fires just as Meacham leaps over a low ledge of rocks and falls. “I hit him, high up! He is all right!” shouts Shacknasty.
Meacham now decides to fire his only shot, and pushing the pistol up over the rocks, carefully raises his head, with it thrown back, and just as his eye comes above the rocks, he sees Schonchin sitting with his revolver resting on his knee. Instantly a flash and a sting, and a ball strikes Meacham in the forehead, between the eyes. Strange freak of the bullet that passes under the eye-brow and out over the left eye, but does not blind the other eye. Meacham now fires at Schonchin, who leaps up and falls on the rocks, wounded. Almost at the same instant a ball passes through Meacham’s right arm. The pistol drops. Another ball cuts away the upper part of his right ear, and still another strikes him on the right side of the head and glances off. He quivers, and his limbs are outstretched, denoting the death-struggle. Shacknasty is the first to reach him, and he proceeds to strip him of his clothing, first pulling his
boots off, then his pantaloons, and, while taking off his coat, tears the vest down at the side and throws it away. Then he strips him of his shirt, for it is a good one, and Shacknasty saves it for his own use.
While he is unbuttoning the shirt at the neck, Slolux comes up, and, placing the muzzle of the gun close to the temple of the wounded man, sets the hammer, and as he raises it up to his face to get it in range, Shacknasty pushes it away, saying in Modoc, “You needn’t shoot. He is dead. He won’t get up.” Hearing the voice of Captain Jack calling, they leave the scene, saying to Tobey, “There lies another of your brothers, you white-hearted squaw! Go and take care of him. You are no Modoc.”
This hour seems to have inherited even the wrath of the Almighty. The blackness of unnatural night hangs over this scene of blood. Gen. Canby’s limbs have straightened on yonder rocks, but a few steps to the west, and his stark body looks ghastly in the awful gloom. Twenty yards to the east the form of Dr. Thomas, his body half stripped and covered with blood, is still convulsing, while his face presses the cold rocks.
The chief calls again to the red-handed demons and bids them flee to the stronghold. They gather around him with the clothing of the slain still dripping blood upon their feet. They are exulting by wild shouts of half-satiated thirst for blood. While glancing towards the soldiers’ camp they reload their arms.
“I am going to have old man Meacham’s scalp to put on my shot-pouch,” says Boston, passing the doctor’s clothing to a companion standing near.
“He has no scalp,” breaks in Hooker Jim, “or I would have it myself.”
Boston now runs to where the bleeding man is lying, and takes from his pocket a small two-bladed, black-handled knife which had been taken from the pocket of a soldier who was killed in the January battle. The Indian woman is wiping the blood from the mutilated face, now upturned with closed eyes. Boston thrusts her aside, and with his left hand, still red with the blood of Dr. Thomas, grasps the largest locks, and makes a stroke with the knife. The woman remembers that the prostrate man over whom Boston is bending has been her benefactor, and that through his official action, in 1869, he compelled Frank Riddle to make her a lawful wife, and that, had it not been for this man, she would now, perhaps, be a cast-off squaw. She cannot restrain her indignation, but rushes against the red cut-throat and hurls him back on to the rocks. He rises and threatens to take her life if she again interferes, taunting her with being a “white woman.” Stamping on the prostrate man’s head, he places one foot on his neck, and renews his attempt to secure an ornament for his shot-pouch, swearing because he found no better scalp, but saying that he would take one ear with it. With his left hand resting on the head, he cuts square down to the skull a long, half-circular gash preparatory to taking off the side lock and ear, too, with his knife.
Tobey now resorts to strategy to accomplish what she cannot do otherwise. Looking towards the soldiers’ camp she claps her hands and shouts, “Bos-tee-na soldiers. Kot-pumbla!”—(“The soldiers are coming!”) Boston, without waiting to ascertain the