After giving my other scouts particular orders to keep A sharp lookout for Indians, and to scout the country thoroughly for eight or ten miles in every direction daily, I took my same four men that were out the trip previous, four days' rations, and started out again.
All my talking did not prevent a surprise, for the second day after our departure the Indians made an attack on the herders, captured twenty-two horses in broad daylight and killed one of the herders. The same evening about sundown they made an attack on the command, and after a hard fight for an hour or more, the Indians retreated, leaving sixty dead Indians on the battlefield, there being eleven soldiers killed and twenty wounded.
On my return Col. Elliott told me not to leave the camp so far any more, for, said he, "I am satisfied if you had been here we would not have had the surprise."
I told the Colonel what kind of country we would have for the next seventy-five miles; plenty of water and grass, abundance of game and the country full of hostile Indians.
The reader will understand that this was the year 1856. The Klamath Indians and the tribe afterwards known as the Modocs, of whom mention will be made later on in this work, were one and the same tribe; and up to this time they did not know what it was to be whipped. Besides there had been but little travel through this part of the country without experiencing a great deal of trouble with those Indians.
CHAPTER XVI.
MORE FISH THAN I HAD EVER SEEN AT ONE TIME.—WE SURPRISE SOME INDIANS, WHO ALSO SURPRISE US.—THE CAMP AT KLAMATH LAKE.—I GET ANOTHER WOUND AND A LOT OF HORSES.
When we pulled out for Klamath Lake we traveled from five to ten miles a day and kept scouts out in all directions. While riding along one day with my four assistants, a few miles in advance of the command, we came to a beautiful body of water which is now known as Clear Lake, which is the head of Lost river. Here we dismounted, and on looking into a brush shanty that stood on the lake shore, I saw more fish than I had ever seen before at one time. The little shanty was filled to its utmost capacity with fish, hanging there to dry for winter use. Further on we found numerous other similar shanties, all containing like quantities of drying fish. These were the Indians' dry-houses. They had caught the fish and hung them there to dry in the hot summer's sun. Such was their food in winter when the land game was scarce.
After our fill of admiring the beautiful lake and resting our horses, we mounted and started back to the command. We had gone only a short distance, when, all of a sudden, on reaching the top of a little hill, we were met by twelve Indians, who had not seen us, nor us them, until within a hundred yards of each other.
There was only one thing to do and that was to fight, for they were directly between us and the command, and the braver we were I thought the better; so I gave orders to charge, but the Indians did not stand fire. We got three of them that first round and in another hundred yards we got three more, but their horses being fresh and ours somewhat jaded, they outran us and got away.