The Modoc Indians: A Native American Saga

by Cheewa James, Modoc Tribe of Oklahoma
Professional Speaker and Author

CLYDE JAMES, Modoc
1900 - 1982
Father of Cheewa James

Author's note: This is my ancestral history. The warrior known as Shacknasty Jim, pictured at the end of this article, was my great-grandfather. As a young man, my grandfather Clark dropped the Shacknasty and elongated the Jim to James, hence my family surname of James.

I often felt pain as I wrote the account of the Modoc War. War is tragic itself but the disintegration of a culture is equally unsettling. "The Modoc Indians: A Native American Saga" was written using much research and in a sincere attempt to tell the story without bias and as it really happened.

In relating the Modoc War of 1872-3, I believe the war could have been averted. The war resulted in great devastation to the Modoc people—as well as tremendous suffering of military soldiers, the settlers in the land originally inhabited by early Modocs, and the families involved. However, in war it is very simplistic to label opposing sides as "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong." War brings humane actions and cruel acts on both sides. War itself is the true evil.

We cannot harbor the bitterness of the past, but use the understanding to build a more loving, gentle world for today and tomorrow. We must acknowledge that all human beings are interrelated. We are here to care for one another.

—Cheewa James

The Modoc Indians: A Native American Saga

by Cheewa James

The frozen lava stretches unrelieved under the northern California sun. An occasional cluster of sagebrush breaks through, but mostly there is tortured black rock and silence.

This was the battlefield more than a century ago as the Modoc Indians fought U.S. government troops in a final desperate effort to avoid being sent back to the Klamath Reservation in Oregon. These warriors have long since been gone. Some rest in Oregon and California, but most lie in a tiny cemetery in northern Oklahoma. A strange set of circumstances took these people nearly 2,000 miles from their homeland.

The Modocs were never a large group. They did not, in fact, live as a tribe but in many small bands. Before 1800 they numbered only 400 to 800 people, occupying an area known as the Lakes District that covered portions of Oregon and California. Using obsidian, or "volcanic glass," to tip their arrows, they hunted and lived off game they found in their 5,000 square miles of hunting range.

The seeds of the wocus, a pond lily, were ground in mortar stones make of lava, and the resulting food was one of their primary staples. Another water plant, the tule, provided material for the skillful hands of the Modoc basket weavers. Wickiups, inverted, bowl-shaped earthen structures entered through a hole in the top, afforded shelter. This, then, was the life of the Modoc people prior to 1880.

Coming of the Invaders

The influx of the white man had a monumental impact on the culture of the Modocs, and the Modoc adopted many of the white man's ways. Mingling with the white people of Yreka, California, at the southern end of their hunting range, they began to wear clothing patterned after that of the white man. The white man's religion upset their code of ethics—challenging, for example, the custom of killing a medicine man who allowed his patient to die. What had once been law to the Indian was regarded by the non-Indian as murder.

Even the names of the Modocs changed, although in many cases the origin of the names has been lost or is only speculative. Ski-et-tete-ko, Left-handed Man, became Shacknasty Jim because, it is said, of his mother's lax manner of housekeeping., Slat-us-locks became Steamboat Frank, named in recognition of his mother's resounding voice. Scarfaced Charley's name came from a large scar extending across his cheek. Black Jim was so-named because even among Indians he was unusually dark.

Thus did such colorful names as Hooker Jim, Black Jim, Ellen's Man George, Curley Headed Doctor and Boston Charley emerge to become recorded on the pages of American history.

But the name destined to stand out above all others was Keintepoos, or Captain Jack, leader of the Modocs.

The case of the Modocs is similar to that of many other Indian tribes of early America. As more and more non-Indians poured into the Northwest, more and more land was needed to accommodate them. In addition, several unfortunate incidents led to animosity between the Modocs and the whites. For one thing, the intrusion of white emigrants' wagons on the Modocs' summer hunting range frightened away game animals.

This, coupled with a tragic error of mistaken identity on the part of the whites in which several Modocs were killed, sparked a Modoc uprising highlighted by a series of Modoc raids and massacres in which whites were killed. In return, the notorious Ben Wright, an Indian fighter whom the Modocs held responsible for many of their misunderstandings with the whites, massacred 41 unarmed Modoc Indians under a white flag of peace.

Becoming Reservation Indians

The problem of the Modocs reached a peak in 1864. The solution, it seemed to the non-Indians of the area and eventually to the government, was to place the Modocs on a reservation where conflict could be avoided and the Modocs could be watched. The Treaty of 1864 was accordingly drawn up. It provided that the Modocs be placed on a reservation located near what is today Klamath Falls.

The Modocs were greatly outnumbered by the Klamaths, and so it followed that they were thoroughly harassed by the Klamaths. The Klamaths demanded that the Modocs turn over a certain portion of their cut timber, and they hampered the Modocs at fishing and struck the Modoc women who gathered seeds at the lake. Moreover, mysterious fires appeared destroying Modoc property. Within the narrow confines of the reservation, the two tribes were on the brink of open warfare.

Captain Jack appeared before the superintendent of the reservation, Captain O.C. Knapp, and demanded that he do something. Captain Jack was, in the days to come, to appear before Knapp three separate times, with no action resulting. In fact, Knapp finally cut off the Modoc's rations, stating that the Indians should start re-establishing their self-sufficiency.

The final meeting, at which time Knapp reportedly swore and cursed at Captain Jack and branded the Indian leader a complainer, prompted Captain Jack to exclaim: "I am not a dog! I am a man, if I am an Indian. I and my men shall not be slaves for a race of people that is not any better than my people. I shall not live here. If the government refuses to protect my people, who shall I look to for protection?"

These words summarized one of the major causes of the Modoc War and the principles for which the Modocs were to fight. On April 25, 1870, some 300 Modocs left the Klamath Reservation to return to their homeland on the Lost River in northern California.

In the following two years, Jack and his band continued to roam free. Finally, in November 1872, an attempt was made to return the Modocs to the reservation. Troops were sent into the Lost River area to bring the Modocs out peacefully if possible, forcefully if necessary. Captain Jack's refusal to surrender signaled the start of the Modoc War.

One of the ironic notes of the war was the fact that a separate band of the Modocs known as the Hot Creek band, under the leadership of Shacknasty Jim, wanting no part of Captain Jack's war, set out for the reservation to live in surrender. En route, however, a lynching party of white settlers caused this band of 45 Modocs, including 14 warriors, to flee in panic and join Captain Jack. It may be said, perhaps, that these 14 warriors tipped the balance in Captain Jack's favor and helped prolong the war.

The Battlefield

The Modocs, realizing that war had indeed come, selected as their battlefield the northern California lava flows known today as the Lava Beds National Monument. There, Captain Jack, his approximately 53 warriors and their families made their stand.

Considering the number of Indians that the army was fighting, the Modoc War was to prove the single most costly Indian war in American history in terms of both money and human life.

The unique terrain of the lava beds and the Indians' uncanny comprehension of how to survive in and use that terrain were the foremost reasons the Modocs were so successful. Bleak and forbidding, the lava beds were the result of massive volcanic activity in times past. Acre after acre of jagged, sharp rocks, broken only occasionally by sparse clumps of sagebrush and bunch grass, formed the surface of this sea of black.

Large fissures and cracks cut down into the lava, and the Indians' knowledge of these enabled them to shuttle quickly back and forth over the battlefield, baffling the U.S. troops, who were never certain exactly where the Indians were. Two or three Indians could successfully hold off large numbers of soldiers by making use of these natural trenches.

The Modocs understood the brutal threat the terrain held and stripped off their clothing and bound themselves in rawhide bandages to protect exposed limbs.

Sagebrush tied to the tops of their heads served as camouflage. Their primary camp was established in a two-mile long, 300-yard-wide natural fortress which had pit-like depressions that served as dwellings for the Modocs. This fortress was to be named and remembered as Captain Jack's Stronghold.

The first battle of the campaign, which pitted 330 men against the Modocs, ended in a total rout for the army, leaving many dead and wounded. It began with the army smugly optimistic. Quite clearly, the soldiers expected to kill or capture every Modoc who had moved to the lava beds. But soon the soldiers discovered that to obey the command to advance was not the same task that it had previously been.

Fog had settled in, and not only were there rocks to be skirted, but a level stretch of land would suddenly break into a yawning chasm. The sharp-edged rocks began to leave their mark—cut hands and ruined shoes. For the soldiers, it was not only difficult to know where the Modocs were, but determining the positions of other units became a problem. In the confusion, the strategically placed Modocs were able to fire their rifles without revealing their positions. One young soldier was wounded twice even though he never once saw an Indian.

When the troops did get close to the Modocs, the Indians taunted them in an attempt to make them show themselves for a clearer shot. At one point, one of the officers was hit, and an involuntary cry of pain came from this lips. Immediately, jeers arose from the Indians, and falsetto cries of "Oh, I'm shot!" rang out accompanied by a woman yelling, "You come here to fight Indians, and you make a noise like that!"

After 10 hours of battle, the U.S. Army had returned to its base camp, bruised and completely demoralized. The Modocs suffered no casualties, and in collecting rifles and ammunition dropped by the fleeing soldiers actually gained possession of better armaments than they originally had.

It is interesting to note that the first actual Modoc casualty, which was one of very few during the war, came when a curious Indian discovered a cannon ball that had failed to explode. The Indian attempted to defuse the ball by pulling the detonator with his teeth. His experiment was a costly one—his head was literally blown off.

The official report of the first campaign against the Modocs stated that in the opinion of commanding officer Frank Wheaton, it would take at least a thousand men to dislodge the Modocs.

The Peace Conference

The next phase of the war was one of attempted peace talks. It was at this time that one of the war's prominent characters entered the picture. General E.R.S. Canby, Department of the Pacific commander, personally took command of the army troops, whose number had by then risen to one thousand. Gen. Canby had the welfare and interest of the Modocs at heart and had volunteered to attempt arranging some kind of peace.

Through the efforts of a Modoc woman named Toby Riddle, or Wi-ni-ma as she was later dubbed, peace conferences were set up. The Modocs were told that if any Modocs wanted to surrender, the army would protect them. A council of war was held by the Modocs to decide how to handle the peace conferences.

By this time, popular opinion had cast Captain Jack as a bloodthirsty renegade, the term "savage" often being applied to him. While still on the reservation, however, he had attempted to keep peace with the Klamaths. Now he again spoke out for peace. But Captain Jack was not destined to live in peace, for at each turning point in his life, he was thrust into war, sometimes by his own stubborn pride, sometimes by the acts of the white man and sometimes by his own people.

At the crucial council of the Modocs, Captain Jack spoke for peace, and although 11 others stood with him, he was strongly opposed by the remaining Modocs, particularly the Hot Creek band. The debate grew more heated until finally one Indian, who favored assassinating the peace commission, threw a woman's shawl and a basket hat upon Captain Jack, taunting, "You are a fish-hearted woman!" So it was that Captain Jack was overruled and the Modocs voted for assassination.

Against the warnings of Winema, on Good Friday, April 11, 1873, Gen. Canby and a three-man commission made up of Alfred B. Meachum, a former Indian superintendent for Oregon; the Rev. Eleasar Thomas of California; and Leroy S. Dyer, Indian agent at the Klamath Agency, left for the peace conference, taking Winema and her husband Frank, a white man, along as interpreters.

A small tent was erected at the site of the conference. It was the canvas from this tent that was to provide the shroud for General Canby's body. The Rev. Thomas was also killed. Under a flag of peace, Captain Jack and several of his warriors had struck.

Gen. Canby was to be the only general killed in an Indian war. (George Custer, killed in the battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, was lieutenant colonel in the regular army. His promotion to brigadier general of volunteers lasted only until the end of the Civil War.)

This assassination sealed the Modoc's fate and ended any thoughts of a future peace.

Jack's Legs Give Out

The fighting resumed, and the Modocs continued to take their toll. Although forced to leave their stronghold, they managed to do so under the cover of darkness and set up camp elsewhere. Time and again, when the soldiers were convinced they had their foe cornered, the elusive Modocs slipped away.

But time was running out for the Modocs. They found living in the cracks of a lava flow difficult at best. Some 165 men, women and children had to be provided for, and water was becoming a severe need. At first, ice from the numerous ice caves in the lava supplied water, but that source was soon depleted.

Then came the incident that was to mark the beginning of the end. In one skirmish, Ellen's Man George, a Hot Creek Modoc, was killed. Claiming that Captain Jack had exposed the Hot Creeks' front-line positions to protect his own band, some 14 warriors and their families split from Captain Jack's band, leaving Jack with only about 33 warriors. Although now facing a military force 10 times the size of his own band and with soldiers continuously on his trail, Captain Jack still managed to elude the army.

Finally, on June 1, 1873, Captain Jack was captured with the aid of four Modocs who had agreed to work as the "Modoc Bloodhounds." Dirty and weak with hunger and fatigue, this Indian chief who had so confounded the military strategists surrendered, saying only: "Jack's legs give out."

The trial that followed at Fort Klamath in Oregon was a strange one. Captain Jack, John Schonchin, Black Jim, Boston Charley and two minor warriors, Slolux and Barncho, were put on trial for murder. The Indians' knowledge of English was sparse, and consequently much that took place was lost on them. They were without legal counsel, having been unable to find anyone to represent them. Slolux and Barncho often sat or reclined on the floor, Slolux on occasion even dropping to the floor to sleep.

Despite the lack of formality and the awkwardness of the trial, the verdict was no surprise to anyone. The defendants were found guilty and sentenced to hang. A last-minute dispensation, however, re-sentenced Slolux and Barncho to life imprisonment at Alcatraz.

October 3, 1873, marked the day of execution for the condemned Modocs. Captain Jack, when asked if he had any final requests, was succinct: "I should like to live until I die a natural death." But this wish was not to be granted. At 10:20 a.m. the four prisoners dropped to their deaths in the gallows.

After the hanging, the four bodies were placed in graves nearby. Captain Jack was not to rest in peace, however, for evidence seems to show that his head was pickled and exhibited in Washington, D.C. in a side show. The skulls of the four Modocs eventually came to reside at the Smithsonian Museum.

The final act had closed on the war in which 53 Indian warriors had been subdued. The remaining Modocs, numbering 153, were exiled. Twelve days after the death of their chief, these Indians were taken by wagon to Redding, California, where they embarked by train for Oklahoma Indian Territory.

Today, in the tiny Modoc cemetery near Seneca, Missouri, the tombstones call out the names of Modoc warriors. These California-Oregon Indians lying in the rich black soil of Oklahoma bring meaning to Captain Jack's words: "You white people have driven us from mountain to mountain, from valley to valley, like we do the wounded deer."

Modoc Exile

A dirt road leads to a small, wind-blown cemetery where tombstones rest among the prairie grasses. Some of the tombstones are cracked, and moss has filled in the lettering engraved upon their faces. One must kneel at these stones and carefully trace the letters carved into the stone. Other stones stand sharp and clean in the midwestern sun.

Located in extreme northeastern Oklahoma, three miles from Seneca, Missouri, this little-known and rarely visited cemetery is labeled "Modoc Cemetery," and it is here that many of the last survivors of the Modoc Indian War of 1873 were laid to rest.

Many accounts of the Modoc War have been set down, but the most succinct, and in its own way moving, was uttered by a Modoc who had endured and survived the war. A year after the end of the war, with a sketchy grasp of the English language, Bogus Charley gave his accounting:

"We be at Tula (Tule) Lake and Lost River. Plenty game, warm country. Government, he buy claim; we go Fort Klamath, Oregon, on mountain, cold country. He say he give grub. Give beef once—no game, hungry—stay two moons. Captain Jack say, go back Tula Lake—go there—settle there—game gone. Settler says, 'go way.' Captain Jack say, 'No, both stay'—no grub—hungry—kill settler's cattle—soldier come, drive us back—fight long time."

A few days after Captain Jack's surrender and his hanging with three of his men, 39 Modoc men, 54 women and 60 children began the long trip to the new homeland.

Before his death, Captain Jack had been asked who should become chief. Jack did not express great trust in or enthusiasm for anyone. "I cannot trust even Scarfaced Charley," he had said. The indication was that if he could trust anyone, Charley would be the one. Accordingly, upon Jack's death, Scarfaced Charley was appointed chief.

History then turned its back on the Modoc Indians. Having fought a battle that created headlines in its time and that would spawn books and writings for a century to come, these Indians now started down an obscure road of little interest to the American press or anyone else.

The Modocs also began a new kind of battle, unheralded and vastly unknown, and this battle they would lose as surely as they had lost the Modoc War.

The Modocs exemplify the fate of many American Indian groups in that their culture, language, religion and arts were threatened. The assimilation of the Modoc Indians into the non-Indian way of life was extremely rapid. One of the major reasons for this was the tremendous spiritual and psychological deflation resulting from the loss of the Modoc War. Their spirit was dashed and never again would an Indian agent experience any trouble from the Indians once branded in papers from East to West as "savages," "renegades" and "bloodthirsty."

Train Ride to a New Land

Taken by wagon from Fort Klamath to Redding, California, the Modocs were put on a train. It is doubtful that any of them had even been on a train before. This, coupled with the fact that no one, prisoner or the general public, was to know the destination of the Modocs, must have been a frightening and depressing experience to the subdued group.

The Modocs, taken to Baxter Springs, Kansas, were exhausted when they disembarked on November 16, 1873. Records are clouded as to their exact condition. Accounts state that the Modocs arrived half-starved in boxcars. The son of one of the men contracted to haul the Modocs from the railroad landing to their permanent home reported: "When they arrived they killed a beef and ate it raw rather than wait to have it cooked."

Miserable and tired, the Modocs were chained together and taken by wagon a short distance to the Quapaw Agency at Seneca Springs. It was in this general area of eastern Ottawa County, Oklahoma, that the Modocs were to begin life anew.

Life anew for the Modocs carried strings from the past. "The widows of the slain still shade their sorrows beneath sable mourning," stated an account in an 1876 copy of the Boston Beacon. "The orphans wear saddened faces at mention of Modoc's name. The remnant band of savage heroes shout back their anguish to the bleak winds of their prairie home in a land of exile. The Modoc chief lives only in the ignominious roll of outlaws."

Practical considerations demanded shelter, and to this end the Modocs, unskilled carpenters that they were, under the command of Scarfaced Charley and with only one day's help from three white men, built a barracks from scrap lumber. Erected for the extremely low cost of $524.40, the barracks was placed only 200 yards from Quapaw Agency Headquarters so that the Modocs would be under the direct supervision of the agent.

Although money had been appropriated to provide the Modocs with clothing and food, the funds did not materialize for some time. Agent Hiram Jones was very much aware of the fact that lack of the necessities of life and the refusal in 1869 of the Klamath agent to do anything about it had been the cause of the original Modoc rebellion. Most anxious to avoid a repetition of history, he accordingly put all hands at the agency to work making garments.

A visitor to the agency stated that he saw one of Jones' daughters cut out 17 pairs of pants in one day. It was with great relief that the agency personnel greeted the $15,000 appropriation that came shortly thereafter.

The Modocs at the Quapaw Agency were neatly dressed in clothes similar to those of the non-Indians of the area. The women, however, still wore the round, brimless caps of their own braiding. Lacking the grasses of the Modoc homeland, the women now used shucks for their weaving. Used to fine, natural materials, they found basket-weaving, the most advanced of the Modoc arts, to be an unrewarding endeavor in their strange new home. An age old craft teetered precariously on the brink of extinction.

Things other than the braided hats had also been brought with them from the homeland and kept. A New York reporter, Claiborne A. Young, visiting at the agency the first year of the Modocs' arrival reported:

"They seem to have uncommonly clear ideas of the 'Great Spirit' and have their own peculiar mode of worship. As Scar-face was conducting us through the camp, he says, 'You hear sing.' We go into the quarters and we see 'Medicine man' bending over a half-naked Indian girl, whose face is marked with white streaks and red. A crowd of men and women—mostly women—chant, 'Y-a-h, yah yah, y-a-h yah, yah!' Scar-faced tries to explain by saying, 'She sick; no, got bad heart, want good one!' That night, they were to go through their annual spring ceremony. Scar-face says, 'white man no come.' So I did not get into their mysteries."

Transition to Midwest Farmers

Yet the facts are indisputable that the Modocs stood unknowingly poised a significant chapter of their history in 1874. Their rebellion had left them not only emotionally and physically drained but also in obvious recognition that their dramatic resistance had brought them only death and exile.

In direct opposition to the spirit of Claiborne's report was the report on the Modocs by Indian Commissioner F.H. Smith. Smith's report was not only accurate but prophetic. Dated November 21, 1874, he stated:

"In a formal talk, for which every member of the band, male and female, assembled, on the morning of the 23rd of September, the expression of satisfaction in their present location and prospects and of their determination to go to work immediately on their new reservation, and become like white men as rapidly as possible, was hearty and unanimous by the chiefs, and assented to by the entire band."

One small area of friction had developed, however. This involved the persistence by some of the members of the band in gambling—even to the point, in some instances, of losing blankets and clothing. Scarfaced Charley, declining to use his authority to stop the gambling, was deposed and a new chief appointed.

In this manner Bogus Charley became the leader of the Modocs. This short, stocky man, 25 years old when he became chief, had considerable contact with non-Indians because of his above-average command of English. He was to remain in authority for many years.

The Modocs settled into life in their new Midwestern home. They had a small farm of 180 acres of cultivated wheat and corn. Some 25 of the Modoc children attended the Society of Friends school. The children's progress in learning the English language was rapid, and several of the adults learned to read.

The Dawn of the Modoc Tribe of Oklahoma

By 1880 almost 50 of the exiles had died. The Modocs suffered heavy mortality during their exile, especially among the children. Bogus Charley died in 1881, and in the same year consumption took Shacknasty Jim, one of the leaders during the Modoc War. The Modocs cremated their dead, along with their personal belongings. However, The Hallaquah, published at the Wyandotte Mission near the Quapaw Agency, states in Jim's obituary:

"Shoknosta was the first Modoc to declare against the custom. A few days before his death he said, 'When I die I not need these things, you must not bury them with me, you must let my wife and children have them, they will need them.' In this, leaving evidence of a fuller possession of the heart by Christians' hope, than has been given before by any other Modoc."

Steamboat Frank, another legendary name from the Modoc War, died in 1885, and his death carried with it even greater significance in terms of the inroads of Christianity. He made the decision to enter the ministry of the Society of Friends and died as the Rev. Frank Modoc, although his death precluded his being given an active pastorate. Scarfaced Charley, too, was converted to the belief of the Quakers. His death came in 1890.

In 1888, 4,000 acres of land were set aside for the Modocs. Bordered by the Shawnee and Peoria Indians groups, the Modoc Reservation bore few names that history might know.

Scarfaced Charley's name appeared in Lot 121 and Princess Mary, Captain Jack's sister, was given Lot 56. Other names had changed or were names of descendants of the original Modocs.

George Denny had been known as Slolux. Henry Hudson, Ben Lawver and U.S. Grant had all, at one time, carried Modoc names. Whus-sum-kpel, Ha-kar-gar-ush, and A-ke-kis, alive in body, were dead in name. Now their names blended in with a roll call of names indistinguishable from those of non-Indian Americans of that time: Anna Spicer, Clark James, Asa Tuttle, Cora Pickering, Agustus Clinton, Robin Hood, Sam Ball, Charlie Hood and Robert Long.

Ben Lawver, known to some as "Chief Yellowhammer," was to be the last historical Modoc chief. In the years ahead, Modoc descendants would be mixed in blood with non-Indians and other Indian groups, and ancient Modoc traditional customs would be scattered to the winds.

Even Lawver was to forsake Modoc tradition. When his brother, Billy, was killed by lightning, Billy's widow presented herself to Ben with the expectation of being taken in. Modoc customs held that a man inherited the widow of his brother. Ben tried to reason with her to the effect that Modocs no longer practiced polygamy. Eliza went after him with a knife.

In desperation, Ben turned to the law. Judge F.C. Adams intervened and sentenced the angry woman to a short cooling-off period in jail. In appreciation, Ben Lawver presented, in 1906, to Judge Adams a bow, now housed at the Ottawa County, Oklahoma, Historical Museum.

When the Modocs were placed in exile in 1874, few spoke English. By the turn of the new century, few Modocs spoke Modoc. In 1909 permission was given to the Modocs to return to Oregon. Some did and their descendants are to be found on the Klamath Reservation. Others remained, for what had once been a land of exile was now their home.

The Stilled Voices

In September 1950, a very old blind Modoc woman was buried in Chief Schonchin Cemetery on the Klamath Reservation. Jennie Clinton, the last survivor of the Modoc War, who as a young woman had taken ammunition from the fallen soldiers, had chosen to spend her last years in Oregon. With her death, the last voice of the Modoc War was gone.

The waves of rebellion stirred in history by the Modocs had been Quelled. Today, the once mighty voices of Modoc warriors are silenced in the tiny Modoc Indian Cemetery.

Walking among the tombstones, the words of Captain Jack in his plea for peace seem to whistle with the wind in the prairie stillness:

"It is true we have killed many white men. The Modoc guns are sure. But hear me, of muck-a-lux (my people)! The white men are many. They will come again. No matter how many the Modocs kill, more will come. We will all be killed in the end."