which has been detailed by Ben Holliday to bear the remains of Gen. Canby to San Francisco. The widow is supported by the arms of officers. Anderson and Scott walk beside the hearse. A city is weeping, while they pay respect to the memory of the noble-hearted Christian General, who hears not the signal gun of departure. Couriers are bearing despatches to Y-re-ka. “The Modocs cannot escape; we have them surrounded. The Warm Springs scouts are out on the outpost. The Modocs cannot escape. Lieut. Sherwood died last night. Lieut. Eagan, improving. Meacham may recover, though badly mutilated and blind.” The salute of honor over the grave of young Hovey announces his burial by the kindly band of army officers.
“Extermination to the Modocs!” says Gen. Sherman. “Extermination,” repeat the newspapers. “Extermination,” says an echo over the Pacific coast. Extermination is the watchword everywhere. “It does look like extermination, that’s a fact, with half a hundred upheaving graves filled with soldiers near the camp; a hospital overflowing with wounded; an army demoralized, and lying passive seven days after the assassination of Gen. Canby and Dr. Thomas; while every day the Modocs waylay and kill unguarded men almost in sight of camp, strip and scalp them, and then heap rocks on their bodies. This looks like extermination, but not of the Modocs. Perhaps it suits those who were so free with denunciation of the Peace Commission. But whether it does, or not, this condition of the plan of extermination is to some extent attributable to the infuriated, senseless, cowardly, and unmanly opposition that was made against Canby and the Peace Commissioners, who saw and felt how
costly in human life a peace made through the death-dealing bullets must be.
Saturday morning, and Modoc emissaries are crawling into the camps of the Klamaths, Snakes, and Wall-pa-pahs, endeavoring to induce these people to join the Modocs in the war. They paint in glowing colors the great success they have had, and declare that the time has come when red men should unite against a common enemy. It cannot be denied that in every Indian camp along the frontier line there were sympathizers with the Modocs; but nowhere were they in sufficient force to precipitate a general war, although the new religion proclaimed by “Smoheller” had found followers everywhere, and was gaining strength by every victory won by Captain Jack. How nearly the frontier came to witnessing a great Indian war is not understood by the people of the Pacific coast.
A Warm Springs Indian, who does not belong to the scouts, is going carefully along the northern shore of the lake. His destination is Linkville. His mission is to bear a letter to Mrs. Meacham. The letter contains a message that will cause her almost to leap for joy:—
Lava Beds, Saturday, April 19, 1873.
... Hire an escort and meet us at the mouth of Lost river to-morrow at noon, and we will deliver your handsome husband over to you in pretty good shape.... We will cross the lake in a boat. Be on time....
D. J. FERREE.
Saturday passes away without an episode that is worthy of record. Not a Modoc has been seen. The scouting parties have brought no tidings of them. The
sentinels walk the rounds. The surgeons are visiting the wounded. The hospital gives out moans, and furnishes another victim for the grave-yard, and a volley of muskets says, “Farewell, comrade!” Meacham is counting the hours as they pass. He is impatient. The long night wears away, and morning breaks at last. Another messenger is stealing away along the lake shore. An ambulance, with a mounted escort of citizens, is drawing toward the mouth of Lost river. “Are you ready to take me to meet my wife?” says a voice in a small tent. “No; the surgeon says the air is raw, and the lake is too rough. We have sent a message to your wife that we can’t go,” replies Capt. Ferree. After a few minutes’ silence the disappointed man replies, “That is not the reason. The wind does not blow.” Very serious thoughts are passing through the minds of both the hearer and the speakers. “I want to know why I am not going.”—“The doctor says you could not stand it to go; the lake is too rough.”—“You and the doctor are cowardly. You think I am going to die.”—“If you force me to be candid, I must tell you the truth. The doctor says you have not more than twenty chances in a hundred to recover.”