The conquering army marches over the spot where the white murderers “wiped out” some of the wrongs committed against our race. The tramping of soldiers’ feet and the iron-shod hoofs of mule teams erases the dark spots in the road, where the tokens of requited vengeance were painted by the dropping
blood from Fairchild’s wagon on the eighth of June.
This blood does not cry out loud enough to catch the ear of the sober, honest-faced angel who has been perching on the victorious emblem of the free white American! No danger that those dark spots will ever trouble that great angel. The blood that made them was drawn from the wrong kind of veins for that.
While the army marches over the trail, effacing footprints of the fleeing avenger, a shot is heard. Quick almost as lightning flash every soldier’s hand grasps his arms. The thought that the Modocs are attempting escape passes through every mind. “Halt!”—rings out the cavalry bugle. Above one of the Government wagons a small puff of smoke is rising in the clear morning air, while behind and beneath it the spattered drops of blood announce that another tragedy is now being enacted. The wagon halts, and now through the floor the current runs in streams, while its splashing on the ground makes melody for ears of white men and soothes the dying senses of Curly-haired Jack.
A few words of explanation, and the fact is established that treason is still among the Modocs, treason to the Government of the United States, committed by Curly-haired Jack, in blowing out his own brains, thus cheating the aforesaid government out of the great privilege of hanging him for the murder of Lieut. Sherwood, under a flag of truce, on the eleventh of April, 1873.
Poor, conscience-stricken self-murderer! his body is mixed up again with his native land, and his friends are denied the privilege of mourning for him.
The army, with its costly coterie of famous guests, encamps at Modoc camp on Klamath Reservation. This is the spot where Captain Jack and his people settled in the beginning of 1870. How changed the fortunes of this man! Then his limbs were free, though his manhood was half disputed; now every motion of his limbs rings clanking music in his ear, constantly reminding him that his manhood has obtained recognition at the cost of life and liberty. Then he was restless under the restraints of civilization, because it denied to him a clear pathway to its privileges and blessings; now he is passive under the persuasive influence of a power that compels his crushed spirit to submission. Then he was the hero chief of Hooker Jim and Bogus Charley, and the daring band that surrounded him; now he is the humbled, crest-fallen victim of their treachery.
He sits behind a guard whose glittering bayonets warn him of the folly of resistance. His betrayers, unfettered, ramble over the ground where the Modocs had begun their new home in 1870.
He steals glances at the great witness tree where Modocs and Klamaths buried the hatchet. They dance with joy over the results of its resurrection.
The army moves out of camp. The captive chief catches sight of four rough-hewn timbers on the left of the road. These were once designed for use in making that chief a house, wherein he was to have passed through probation, looking toward his ultimate attainment of citizenship under the “Humane Policy of the Government.”