But the Warm Springer shook his head.
“Captain Jack got just fifty-six men,” he said, “and he know just who have been killed. Kit and Cohoon can’t become Modocs, but they might make good Klamaths.”
“But where’s the material?”
“There!” and as the Indian spoke he pointed to the dead Modocs.
“But, Cohoon, this isn’t the Klamaths’ war.”
“Jack looking every way for Klamath braves. Arrow-Head promise to help Modocs; but the old chief ’fraid of blue-coats’ big guns. Cohoon lived with the Klamath Lake Indians off and on for long time, and he can paint just like ’em.”
“And hevn’t I hunted and fished with the dirty greasers, too?” cried the scout. “You just ought to hear me bladge Klamath jargon once. Why, I kin out-talk old Arrow-Head himself. Yes, we’ll turn into Klamaths right off, and we’ll tell Jack the biggest pack of lies that ever fell upon his ears.”
In less than no time the mutilated Indians were stripped, and the twain bore the garments, with the warriors’ paint-pouches to the brink of a small stream that flowed through the lavaed fissures, perhaps forty feet below the fused surface.
A lone torch enabled them to accomplish the weird metamorphosis, and after the lapse of an hour they rose to their feet, veritable Klamath Indians.
“My name’s Coquil, or the Dog that Bites,” said the painted scout, with a broad grin of humor. “What’s your handle, Cohoon?”