out under cover of darkness, and leaves the soldiers to fire away at his empty caves until morning, when another order to charge is made, and the lines close slowly up with great care, like fishermen who feel sure they have a big haul, until they land the seine, and discover that a great rent has let the prize escape. See the soldiers’ line! How carefully it contracts to the centre, the soldiers expecting each moment that the Modocs will make a break, until, at last, the lines come together like a great draw-string, only to reveal the fact that no Indians are there, except one old man, whom all declare to be Schonchin, who was wounded by Meacham’s Derringer last Friday. He shall not escape, and a dozen bullets pass through him. He falls over, and the men gather around and scalp the old fellow.
“Meacham shall have a lock of his hair,” says one; and he cuts it from one of the scalps.
Then the old Indian’s head is severed from his body, and kicked around the camp like a foot-ball, until a surgeon interferes, and saves it from further indignities by sending it to the camp, where the face was carefully skinned off, and “put to pickle” in alcohol. The men shout and hurrah while exploring the caves, expecting to find Captain Jack, like a wolf at bay, somewhere, determined to “die in the last ditch.” Instead of Modocs, they find the remains of soldiers who have been killed, ammunition that had been captured, and dried beef that had not been required; but no evidence of any “Modoc bodies having been burned.”
While they were rejoicing in the capture of this great natural fortress of the Modoc chief, he was in a
new position with his people, resting and recruiting from the three days’ battle, and so near his old “stronghold” that he could hear the reports of the soldiers’ muskets when they finished up the supposed Schonchin.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
MUSIC DON’T SOOTHE A SAVAGE—FIGHTING THE DEVIL WITH FIRE A FAILURE—“WE’LL BURY THE OLD MAN ALIVE.”
The expectant man has waited, watched, listened for the sound of a voice that would bring joy to him. His attendant carefully breaks the disappointment, fearing the consequences.