tape line in his hand, and, with the assistance of one of his men, is measuring off small lots, squaring them with the plaza; see him mark the spot, while a soldier drives down a peg; and then another, about seven feet from it. He continues this labor until six little pegs are standing in a row, opposite another row of like number.
Hooker, Steamboat, and Bogus Charley are leaning on the fence, looking at the men who are now with spades butting the soil in lines, conforming to the pegs.
Bogus asks, “What for you do that?”—“Making a new house for Jack,” answers a grave-digger, lifting a sod on his spade.
This is a little more than Bogus could stand unmoved. He turns away, and, meeting the eyes of Boston, who looks out between the iron bars of his cell, Bogus mutters, in the Modoc tongue, a few words that bring Barncho and Slolux to the window.
The three worthies look out now upon a scene that very few, if any three men in the world ever did—that of the digging of their own graves. It is but a thin partition that separates these convicts from their chiefs, Captain Jack and Schonchin, who are aroused from the condition into which the parting scene had left them, by a tapping on the wall. If the last trial was crushing on them, what must have been the force of Boston’s speech, through that wall, telling them that the earth was already opening to receive their bodies.
The sheriff of Jackson County, Oregon, is on hand, and he has a business air about him too.
Justice sent him on this mission, after the red demons, who want a front seat at the show to-morrow. Will justice or power triumph? We shall see, when he presents his credentials to Gen. Wheaton, whether a State has any rights that the United States is bound to respect.
An offer of ten thousand dollars is made to Gen. Wheaton for the body of Captain Jack. He indignantly spurns it. This accounts for the future home of the Modoc chief being located under the eyes of Uncle Sam’s officers. It is now nearly ready for occupation; the mechanics are putting on the finishing touches to his narrow bed; he is not quite ready yet to take possession; he is waiting for Uncle Sam to arrange his neck-tie, and read to him his title-deed.
Boston looks out through the iron bars, and sees the sods up-thrown, that are to fall on his lifeless heart to-morrow.
What a contemplation for a sentient being; watching the grave digger hollowing out his own charnel-house!