Another silence of a few minutes, and the invalid replies, “I’ll take the twenty chances. I must live; I have so many depending on me.”
“If you pass midnight, the doctor says you may live.”
The ambulance, with the mounted escort, is standing on the battle-ground of November 30th, 1872. A woman is in the front end, with a field-glass, scanning the lake. No boat is in sight. Her hopes and
fears alternate, when she suddenly catches sight of the messenger on the lake shore. The glass drops from her hands, and she sinks down on the seat and waits the coming of the messenger. He holds out the letter. The woman grasps it, and as she reads, her lips quiver. “Why, oh why is this? The air is not chilly. The lake is not rough.” Words are too poor to express the torturing suspense that follows while the ambulance carries her back to Linkville. Hope sets alternately with despair in the heart. For ten days has this woman felt the presence of each as circumstances bade them come and go. Two more days is she yet to walk beneath a sky that is half hidden by dark clouds. ’Tis midnight, Sunday. The surgeon, De Witt, and Capt. Ferree are sitting beside the woman’s husband.
“I can tell you in another hour. If he comes out of this well, he is all right.” Dr. De Witt, with his finger on the patient’s pulse, nods to Ferree, “He is all right.” The patient awakes, and finds the doctor there. “How am I, doctor, shall I live?”—“I think you will, my dear fellow. You have passed the crisis.” “Thank God!” comes from every lip. “Keep quiet; don’t get excited. We can save you now, but you had a very close call. If you had been a drinking man all the surgeons in Christendom could not have saved you. Rest quiet until morning, and I will come in again.” Oh, what a change a few hours have wrought! Yesterday the sun went behind a dark cloud, and the invalid withstood the shock of “Twenty out of a hundred” for life. Now the sun of life comes again, and makes the vision clear of a loving family, home and friends. The transitions from despair to hope have
been so frequent with this man that he can scarcely realize that he is again led by the angel of hope.
It is morning. Dr. De Witt and Capt. Ferree are in council. “I think he is on the safe side if he is careful,” remarks the doctor. Another messenger is despatched to Linkville, with a letter making another appointment at the mouth of Lost river for the next day.
Donald McKay is in camp to receive orders. He reports that his scouts have circled the Lava Beds. “The Modocs have not escaped; they must be in there somewhere.” Couriers arrive bringing newspapers, containing obituary notices of Gen. Canby, Dr. Thomas, and A. B. Meacham. Fairchild, Riddle, and Ferree were in Meacham’s tent, reading. Ferree remarks, “See here, old man, they have had you dead. You can know what the world will say about you when you do die. Some of them say very nice things. Here’s one fellow that knows you pretty well.... ‘Meacham was a man of strong will and positive character, who made warm friends and bitter enemies.’” ... “There, that will do; when I die I want those words put on my tombstone,” replies Meacham. “Here, how do you like this? ... ‘Served him right. He knew the Modocs better than any other man; why did he lead Canby and Thomas to their death? On his skirts the blood must be,’ ... Here is another that’s pretty good. This fellow has found out you aint dead, and he is mad about it. It’s a Republican organ, too, at that.... ‘If Meacham could be made to change places with Canby or Thomas few tears would be shed. He is responsible for all this blood. He
knew the Modocs. They did not. We are not disappointed. We expected that this fanatical enthusiast would do some foolhardy thing, and we can only regret that he did not suffer instead of innocent men.’ ... There, how do you like that, old man? That’s what you get for not being a general or a preacher. They pay you a high compliment,—sending Canby and Thomas to their death. Big thing, old man! You are somebody. Now, I’ll tell you if you don’t get through to straighten this thing out I’ll do it, if it costs my life.”—“Call on me, captain, I know that Meacham did all in his power to prevent the meeting,” says Riddle. Fairchild remarks, “If they had listened to Meacham, they would have been alive now. I know what I am saying, I know all about the whole thing, and I know that Meacham did his best to keep them from going. I can tell those newspaper men some things they would not like to hear. They abused Meacham all the way through, while Canby escaped their slander, when he was in truth as much a peace man as Meacham, and more too. I have been with the commission. All I have to say is that it was a d——d cowardly contemptible thing from the beginning to the end the way the Oregon papers ‘went for’ the peace policy. I guess they are satisfied now. They wanted war, and they’ve got it. The Modoc-eating Oregon papers and volunteers haven’t lost any Modoc themselves. Better send some more volunteers down here to eat up the Modocs, like Capt. ——’s company did the day that Shacknasty Jim held a whole company for seven hours in check, d——n ’em.” Capt. Ferree replies, “Fairchild, you had better go slow. Almost every editor in Oregon is a
fighting man. Two or three of them were down here once, and they may come again for more Modoc news, and if they run across you you’re gone up.” Fairchild: “Yes, they’re ‘on it,’ seen ’em try it. Shacknasty tried ’em. One of them came down here looking for Squire Steele, of Y-re-ka, and when a man pointed out Steele to him, this fighting editor rode out of his way to keep from meeting him. It’s a fact! An other one was going to scalp old Press Dorris. He didn’t fail for the same reason that Boston Charley did on the old man there,—cause he hadn’t any hair;—no, that wasn’t the reason. He rode too good a horse himself; that’s why. Press was around all the time. He didn’t keep out of the way; fact is, Press was anxious for the scalping to begin. If any of those fighting editors come down here, well, set Shacknasty after them, and then you’ll see them git. Bet a hundred dollars he can drive any two of them before him.”—“Look here, here’s something rich,” says Ferree, turning the paper: ... “‘Gov. Grover will call out volunteers to assist the regulars. They will make short work of it. The regulars are eastern men, and cannot fight Indians successfully.’” Fairchild says, “That’s rich. One thousand soldiers here now, and more Oregon volunteers coming, to whip fifty Modocs. All right; the more comes the more scalps the Modocs will take; that’s about what it’ll amount to.”