Life Amongst the Modocs: Unwritten History/Chapter 15

by Cincinnatus Heine Miller

CHAPTER XV.

TURN TO THE RIGHT AS THE LAW DIRECTS.

NOTHER danger lies in getting too low down on the hillside to the sea. On that side, where only grass has grown and pine-quills fallen without any undergrowth to hold them there, and con tribute its own decaying and cast-off clothes to the soil, the ground is often broken, and, unlike the north side of the hills, shows here and there steep bluffs and impassable, basaltic blocks, or slides of slate or shale on which it would be madness to venture.

The only safe thing to do is to find the summit, and keep along the backbone of the mountain, and thus escape the chapparal nets of the north and the precipices of the south.

Great skill consists in being able to reach the summit successfully, and still greater in keeping along the backbone when it is once reached, and not follow off on one of the spurs that ofte n shoot up

higher than the back of the main ridge. There arc many trails here, made by game going to and fro in the warm summer days, or in crossing the ridges in their semi-annual migrations down to the rivers and back again to the mountains.

The temptations to take one of these trails and abandon the proper one, which is often dim and sometimes wholly indistinct, are many. It takes the shrewdest mountaineer to keep even so much as for one day s journey along the backbone without once being led aside down the spurs into the nets of chapparal, or above the impassable crags and precipices. Of course, when you can retrace your steps it is a matter of no great moment ; you will only lose your time. But with us there was no going back.

When we had reached the second bench we turned to look. Soon the heads of the men were seen to shoot above the rim of the bench below ; perhaps less than a mile away. No doubt they caught sight of us now, for the hand of the officer lifted, pointed in this direction, and he settled his spurs in his sinch, and led his men in pursuit.

Deliberately the Prince dismounted, set his saddle well forward, and drew the sinch tight as possible. We all did the same ; mounted then, and followed little Klamat, who had by this time set both arms free from the odious red shirt which was now belted about the waist, up the hill as fast as we could follow.

We reached the summit of the ridge. S cintilla-

tions from the flashing snows of Mount Shasta shimmered through the trees, and a breath of air came across from the Klamat lakes and the Modoc land beyond, as if to welcome us from the dark, deep canon with its leaden fringe, and lining of dark and eternal green.

The Doctor pushed his hat back from his brow and faintly smiled. He was about to kiss his hand to the splendid and majestic mountain showing in bars and sections through the trees, but looked around, caught the eye of Klamat, and his hand fell timidly to his side.

As for Paquita, she leaped from her pony and put out her arms. Her face was radiant with delight. Beautiful with divine beauty, she arched her hand above her brow, looked long and earnestly at the mountain, and then, in a wild and unaccountable sort of ecstasy, turned suddenly, threw her arms about her pony s neck, embraced him passionately and kissed his tawny nose.

"We had been buried in that canon for so long. "We were like men who had issued from a dungeon. As for myself, I was much as usual; I clasped and twisted my hands together as I let my reins fall on my horse s neck, and said nothing.

Our animals were mute now, too; no mule of the party could have been induced to bray. They were tired, dripping with sweat, and held their brown noses low and close to the ground, without at tempting to touch the weeds or grasses.

X

Klamat threw up his hand. The men had ap peared on the bench below. We had evidently gained on them considerably, for here we had ten minutes rest before they broke over the mountain bench beneath. This was encouraging. No doubt a saddle had slipped off back over a mule s rump in some steep place they had just mounted, and thus caused the delay, for they had neglected to sinch their saddles in their great haste.

They dismounted now, and settled their saddles. We tightened our saddles also. This was the sum mit, and now came the demand for skill.

When the officer threw his leg over the macheers of his saddle below, Klamat set forward. His skill was as wonderful as his endurance. Being now on the summit, he could travel without halting to breathe ; this, of course would be required if he hoped to keep ahead. And even then, where would it all end? It is most likely no one had thought of that. For my part, I kept watching the sun and wishing for night.

This is an instinctive desire of all things rational or irrational, I think, that are compelled to fly

"0 that night or Blucher would come."

It was hardly possible to keep ahead of our pursuers all day, well mounted as they were, and one of our party on foot, yet that seemed to be the only hope. There yet was an alternative, if the worst came to the worst. We could ambush a nd shoot

them down. I saw that Klamat kept an eye con stantly on his rifle when not foxing the trail and eyeing the pursuers.

The Prince was well armed. He carried his double-barrelled piece before him in the saddle-bow. The rest of us were not defenceless. The deed was more than possible.

These men wanted the Doctor : him only, so far as we knew. The Doctor was accused of murder. The officer, no doubt, had due process, and the legal authority to take him. To the Prince he was nothing much. He was no equal in physical or mental capacity. He was failing in health and in strength, and could surely be of no future possible use to us. Why should the Prince take life, or even imperil ours for his sake ?

The answer, no doubt, would be very unsatis factory to the civilized world, but it was enough for the Prince. The man needed his help. The man was almost helpless. This, perhaps, was the first and strongest reason for his course. There is a great deal in this chivalrous disposition to shield the weak.

When woman arises and asserts herself, as the sharp-tongued, thin-lipped puritaness proposes, and is no longer dependent, man s arm will no longer be reached as a shield, but as a sword.

Whenever woman succeeds in making herself a soldier she must fight. The beasts of the field will fight to the death for the young while they ar e help-

less ; but when they grow strong and swift the beasts of the field will run away and leave them to their fate, or even fight against them when they are strong, as bravely as they did for them when they were weak.

At the bottom of all other reasons for taking care of this man, who seemed to become every day less capable of taking care of himself, was a little poetical fact not forgotten. This man furnished bread when we were hungry when the snow was deep, when the earth lay in a lock-jaw, as it were, and could not open her mouth to us.

Now and then Klamat would turn his eyes over his shoulder, toss his head, and urge on. The eagle-feathers in his black hair, as if glad to get back again in the winds of Shasta, floated and flew back at us, and we followed as if we followed a banner. A black banner, this we followed, made of the feathers of a fierce and bloody bird. Where would it lead us? No buccaneers of the sea were freer, wilder, braver at heart than we. Where would it lead us ?

One thing was fearfully against us. The recent rains had made the ground soft and spongy. The four horses made a trail that could be followed on the run. Even where the pine-quills lay thickest, the ground would be broken here and there so as to leave little doubt or difficulty to our pursuers.

Had it been a dry autumn the ground would have been hard as an adobe, and we might have dodged to one side almost anywhere, and, providing our mules

did not smell and hail the passing party, escaped with impunity. As it was, nothing seemed left but to persist in flight to the uttermost. And this we did.

We did not taste food. We had not tasted water since sunrise, and it was now far in the afternoon. The Doctor began to sit with an unsteady motion in his saddle. The mules were beginning to bray; this time from distress, and not excess of spirits. The Prince s mule had his tongue hanging out between his teeth, and, what was worse, his ears began to flop to and fro as if they had wilted in the sun. Some mules put their tongues out through their teeth and go very well for days after ; but when a mule lets his ears swing, he has lost his ambition, and is not to be depended on much longer.

A good mountain mule should not tire short of a week, but there is human nature wherever there is a bargain to be made, and there are mule jockeys as well as horse jockeys even in the mountains; and you cannot pick up good mules when you like, either for love or money. The men who followed had, no doubt, a tried and trusty stock. Things began to look critical.

The only thing that seemed unaffected was Klamat. Two or three times through the day he had stood his rifle against a pine, drew his belt a knot or two tighter, fastened his moccasin-strings over, and then dashed ahead without a word. Our banner of eagle feathers still floated defiantly, and promised t o lead

even further than we could follow. Closer and closer came the pursuers. We could see them striking their steel spurs in their sinches as if they would lift their tired mules along with their heels.

Once they were almost within hail ; but a saddle slipped, and they lost at least ten minutes with a fractious mule, that for a time concluded not to be sinched again till it had taken rest.

The sugar-pines dropped their rich and delicate nuts as we rode by, from pyramid cones as long as your arm, and little foxy-looking pine squirrels with pink eyes, stopped from their work of hoarding them for winter, to look or chatter at us as we hurried breathless and wearily past.

Mount Shasta still flashed down upon us through the dark rich boughs of fir and pine, but did not thrill us now.

When the body is tired, the mind is tired too. You get surfeited with grandeur at such a time. No doubt the presence tames you somewhat, tones down the rugged points in you that would like to find expression ; that would find expression in fret ful words but for this greatness which shows you how small you are; but you are subdued rather than elevated.

Suddenly Klamat led off to the right as if for saking the main summit for a spur. This seemed a bad sign. The Prince said nothing. At any other time I dare say he would have protested.

[UNIVERSITY;

We had no time to dispute now; besides, almost any change from this toilsome and eternal run was a relief. What made things seem worse, however, this boy seemed to be leading us back again to The Forks. We were edging around at right angles with our pur suers. They could cut across if we kept on, and head us off. We were making more than a crescent ; the boy was leading us right back to the men we wished to escape.

Soon he went out on a point and stopped. He beckoned us to ride up. We did so. It seemed less than half a mile to a point we had passed less than an hour since, and, as far as we could see, there was only a slight depression between. The officer and his party soon came in sight. As they did so he raised his arm. We were not unobserved.

Klamat sat down to rest, and made signs that we should dismount. I looked at the Prince to see what he would do. He swung himself to the ground, looking tired and impatient, and we all did the same. The Doctor could not keep his feet, but lay down, helpless, on the brown bed of quills from the sugar- pines that clustered around and crowned the point where we had stopped to rest.

The officer and his men looked to their catenas ; each drew out a pistol, revolved the cylinder, settled the powder back in the tubes by striking the ivory handles gently on the saddle pommels, saw that each nipple still held its cap, and then spurred their mules down the hillside as if to cross the depression

that lay between, and head us off at once. They were almost within hail, and I thought I could hear the clean sharp click of the steel bells on their Spanish spurs as they descended and disappeared among the tree-tops as if going down into a sea.

Klamat had learned some comic things in camp, even though he had not learned, or pretended he had not learned, to talk. When the men had dis appeared among the branches of the trees, he turned to the Prince and gravely lifted his thumb to his nose, elevated his fingers in the air, and wriggled them in the direction of the place where the officer was seen to descend.

Every moment I expected to see the muzzles of those pistols thrust up through the pines as the three men turned the brow of the hill. They did not appear, however, and as we arose to adjust our saddles after some time, I stepped to the rim of the hill and looked over to the north side. The hill was steep and rugged, with a ledge, and lined with chap- parral. A white-tailed rabbit came through, sat down, and looked back into the canon. Some quails started and flew to one side, but that was all I saw or heard.

The Doctor had to be assisted to his saddle. He was pale, and his lips were parched and swollen. Slowly now Klamat walked ahead ; he, too, was tired. We had rested too long, perhaps. You cannot get an Indian to sit down when on a long and severe journey, unless compelled to, to rest others. The cold and damp creeps into the joints, and you get

stiff and tenfold more tired than before. Great as the temptation is to rest, you should first finish your race, the whole day s journey, before you let your nerves relax.

Slowly as we moved, however, our pursuers did not reappear. We were still on the ridge, in spite of the sharp and eccentric turn it had taken around the head of the river.

As the sun went down, broad, blood-red ban ners ran up to the top of Shasta, and streamed away to the south in hues of gold; streamed and streamed as if to embrace the universe in one great union beneath one banner. Then the night came down as suddenly on the world as the swoop of an eagle.

The Doctor, who had all the afternoon kept an uncertain seat, now leaned over on his mule s mane, and had fallen, but for the Prince who was riding at his side.

Klamat came back and set his rifle against a pine. We laid the feeble man on the bed of quills, loosened the sinches as the mules and ponies let their noses droop almost to the ground, and prepared to spend the night. This was imperative. It was impossible to go farther. That would have been the death of the man we wished to save.

A severe ride in the mountains at any time is a task. Your neck is wrenched, and your limbs are weary as you leap this log or tumble and stumble your tired animal over this pile of rocks or through that sink of mud, until you are tired enough by night ;

but when you ride an awkward and untrained mule, when you have not sat a horse for a year, and have an old saddle that fits you like an umbrella or a barrel, you get tired, stiff-limbed, and used up in a way that is indescribable. As for poor Paquita she was literally crucified, but went about picking up quills for beds for all, and never once murmured.

The Doctor was very ill. Klamat went down the hill-side and found some water to wet his lips, but this did not revive him. It was a cold evening. The autumn wind came pitching down from the Shasta, sharp and sudden. The old Frost King, who had been driven to the mountain-top in the early summer, was descending now by degrees to reclaim his original kingdom.

We unpacked the little mule and spread a bed for the suffering man, but still he shivered and shook, and we could not get him warm. We, too, were suffering from the cold. We could hardly move when we had rested a moment and let the cold drive back the perspiration, and drive the chill to the marrow.

u A fire," said the Prince.

Klamat protested against it. The sick man grew worse. Something warm would restore him.

We must have a fire. Paquita gathered up some pine knots from the hill side. A match was struck in the quills. The mules started, lifted their noses, but hardly moved as the fire sprung up like a giant full-grown, and reached for the cones of the sugar

pines overhead. There was comfort and companion ship in the fire. We could see each other now, our little colony of pilgrims. We looked at each other and were revived.

We had a little coffee-pot, black and battered it is true, but the water boiled just the same, and as soon as if it had been silver.

This revived the Doctor. Hunger had much to do with his faintness. He now sat up and talked, in his low quiet way, looking into the fire and brushing the little mites of dust and pine-quills from his shirt, as if still to retain his great respectability of dress ; and by the time we all had finished our coffee, he was almost as cheerful as we had ever seen him before.

The moon came out clear and cold, and we spread our damp and dusty blankets on the quills between the pines, with the snowy front of the Shasta lifting, lifting like a bank of clouds away to the left, and the heads of many mining streams dipping away in so many wild and dubious directions that no one but our little leader, perhaps, could have found the way to the settlements without the gravest embarrassment.

Klamat had gone down the hill for water, this time leaving his rifle leaned against a pine, though not without casting a glance back over his shoulder as if to say, " Look sharp ! but I will be back at once." We all were still warming ourselves by the fire, I think, though there are some sudden things you cannot just recall.

A wave of fate strikes you so strong sometimes,

that you are swallowed up. Heads and ears you go under it and you see nothing, you remember nothing. It seems to take your breath.

Click! click! click! a tired mule started, snuffed, and then dropped his h$ad, for it was over in an instant.

u Hands up, gentlemen ! hands up ! Don t trouble yourselves to move ! There, that will do ! You are the one we want. Pass in your checks ! "

The Doctor hid his face in his hands, and let them take his arms without a word.

The fire had done the mischief. Klamat did not come back ; at least, he did not let it be known if he did. Paquita opened her large eyes very wide, pushed back her hair, and rested her hands in her lap as she sat looking at the three strange men in elegant top boots and broad-brimmed hats.

u A pretty man you are, Mr. Prince, to run with this fellow," said the officer, u to give me this race. For a coon skin I would take you in charge too."

Here he arose, went over, and looked at the animals in the firelight, as if looking for some cause to lay hands on the Prince, took general charge of the camp as if it were his own, lit his pipe, had one of the men make coffee, and seemed quite at home.

If the Prince uttered a word all this time I do not remember it.

"Where s your other Ingin, Prince?" said the officer, looking about and seeing but the four saddles. u Put him in the bush, or left him in

o

the camp? Rather a good-looking piece you got here now, ain t she? " He pointed his pipe-stem at Paquita.

For the first time the Prince showed colour.

The officer and his men, toward midnight, spread their blankets on the other side of the fire. They were scarce of blankets, and the night was cold.

This may be the reason they all spread down together. But there is nothing that will excuse such a stupid thing in the mountains. Sleep apart. Wide apart, rods apart : never two together, unless you wish to make a broad target of yourselves where the muzzle of one gun can do the work of many.

Before lying down the men did what they could for their tired beasts ; and then the officer came up to the Doctor, who still gazed and gazed into the fire, and, drawing something from his pockets that chinked like chains, said

" Your hands !"

" He is ill," said the Prince, " very ill. I will answer for him. Iron me instead ; but that man is a nervous, sensitive man that cannot bear to be chained."

The officer laughed a little and, without answer ing, took the Doctor s unresisting hands and linked them together with a snap that made one shudder ; then, laying him back in his blankets, looked to his pistol, and saying

u Don t move ! Don t you attempt to move !" walked over to the other side of the pine-kno t fire,

and, pistol in hand, lay down by his companions, looking all the time across the fire at his prisoner.

The Prince arose, went and gathered up pine- knots by the light of the moon, and laid them on the fire. Paquita looked inquiringly at him, and then went and did the same. When the fire loomed up, he lifted the blankets from the Doctor s feet, drew off his boots, and let the warm, cheerful fire fall on the wretched man.

The officer lay like a fox watching every move and motion, with his head on his saddle, and his nose just above the blankets. His pistol hand was at his side clutching the revolver. The other men were equally wide awake and watchful at his side.

" Lie down, Paquita," said the Prince, u lie down and rest with your moccasins to the fire ; you have had a hard and bitter day of it. I will keep the fire."

The child obeyed. He waved his hand at me to do the same, and I was soon sound asleep.

The last I saw of the Prince before falling asleep he was resting on his side with his hand on his head, and elbow on his blankets. In the mountains, when you spread your blankets, you put your arms rifle or pistols in between the blankets as carefully as if they were children. This is done, in the first place, to keep them dry, and, in the second place, to have them ready for use. They are laid close to your side. The heat of your body keeps out the damp.

I awoke soon. I was too bruised, and sore, and sick in mind and body, to sleep. There is a doleful, dreary bird that calls in this country in the night, in the most mournful tone you can imagine. It is a sort of white-headed owl; not large, but with a very hoarse and coarse note. One of these birds was calling at intervals down the gorge to the right, and another answered on the other side so faintly I could just hear it. An answer would come just as regularly as this one called, and that would sound even more doleful and dreary still, because so far and indistinct. The moon hung cold and crooked over head, and fell in flakes through the trees like snow.

The Doctor put out his two hands, pushed back the blanket, and raised his head. He looked to the left in the gorge as if he contemplated a spring in that direction. I think that, at last, he had summoned up courage to make a desperate effort to escape.

He drew up his legs slowly, as if gathering his muscles for a leap. My heart stood still* All seemed clear. I could see the nerves of his face quiver in the moon.

He turned his head to the officer, not six feet away across the fire, and looked squarely into the ugly, sullen muzzles of three lifted pistols.

The Doctor sank back with a groan. His face was white as the moon that shone down upon it through the quills above his head.

The officer and his men exchanged glances, arid lay down without a word. The Prince was possibly

asleep. Still, ever and again, the doleful bird kept calling, and the woful answer came back like an echo of sorrow across the great black canon below.

The moon kept settling and settling to the west among the yellow stars, as broad and spangled as California lilies, and the morning was not far away.

Again the Doctor drew in his naked feet. I could see the muscles gather and contract, and I knew he was again preparing for a spring. All was still. He raised his head, and three pistol muzzles raised and met the man half way. He crept back far down in the blankets, hid his head in the folds, and shuddered and shivered as with an ague.

Dawn was descending and settling around the head of Shasta in a splendour and a glory that words will never touch.

There are some things that are so far beyond the reach of words that it seems like desecration to attempt description. It was not the red of Pekin, not the purple of Tyre or the yellow of the Barbary coast; but merge all these, mixed and made mellow in a far and tender light snow and sun, and sun and snow and stars, and blue and purple skies all blended, all these in a splendid, confused, and inde scribable glory, suffusing the hoary summit, centering there, gathering there, resting a moment then radiat ing, going on to the sea, to broad and burning plains of the south, to the boundless forests of fir in the north, even to the mining camps of Cariboo, and you have a sunrise on the summit of Shasta.

The Prince lifted his head, rested on his elbow, rubbed his eyes as if he had surely slept, and then slowly and stiffly arose. The fire was low, almost out. He turned to gather pine-knots, laid them on the fire, and turned away as if to gather more. The Doctor seemed to sleep. The officer and his men were resting too. Perhaps they slept also.

" Click! click!"

I sprang to my feet.

" Don t trouble yourselves to move, gentlemen I Remain just where you are, gentlemen, just where you are! "

It was the Prince who spoke this time. He had approached the three heads from behind, and had the double-barrelled gun with its double handful of buck-shot levelled, as he spoke, against the tops of their heads as they lay there on their backs.

Approach a man lying down as if you meant to tread upon his scalp* and pin him to the earth, and he is the most- helpless of mortals. He cannot see you, he cannot turn around, he can do nothing. Here lay those men; they could see nothing but the black ugly muzzles of the double barrels. Their pistols were in their hands ; they were plucky fellows, but they could not draw; they were as likely to shoot each other as an enemy or any one.

This coming upon a man when he is lying down on his back may not be the manliest way in the world, but it is the safest, certainly ; and when the game is three to one, you have to take all the per-cent. you

can, or, in mountain phrase, u just pass in your checks."

"Don t trouble yourselves to move, gentlemen; don t trouble to rise ! "

The Prince said this with a mockery and irony in his tone that was bitter beyond expression ; as if all the poison and the venom of the cruel words arid cruel treatment of the Doctor the night before had been rankling in his heart till it was ready to burst out of itself, and he now hissed it out between his teeth.

There was something in his words that told the three men that he would rather like it if they would only "trouble to move," move the least bit in the world. As if he would be particularly glad if even one of them would lift a finger, and give him even the least shadow of an excuse to blow them to the moon. They therefore u did not trouble to move."

Klamat came out here from the dark with the dawn. He approached the men like a shadow thrown by a pine from the far light, pulled down the blan kets, and took the three pistols from their unresisting hands.

u You may sit up now," said the Prince, taking a seat across the fire by the side of the Doctor. u You may sit up now. You are my prisoners, but I will not handcuff you. I will give you back your arms if you obey me, and you shall return to your town.

" I will not ask you not to mention this little affair," said the Prince raising the double barrels, a s one of

the men seemed to be gathering his legs under him I will not ask you not to mention this little affair. That is safe enough. You gents will be the last men on earth to mention it. But I give you my word that it shall never be mentioned by us, never, so long as you do not attempt to molest this man. Make the least attempt against him, or any one here, and you shall be made the laughing-stock of your town."

The men looked at each other with hope. They had expected to die on the spot.

" It s your pot, Prince, take it down. You hold the papers, called us on a dead hand, you did, but this was no bluff of mine. The only mislead made was not to chain you down too, like a dog, as you deserve to be."

The Prince coloured. u If you had not chained this man," he said at last, quietly, " perhaps you could have taken him with you. The only mistake you made was to chain any man at all. Chain a man that could not stand on his feet ! You deserve to be shot ; and if you repeat yourself, I will let Klamat scalp you where you sit."

The Indian arose with his hand on his knife. There was a fierce satisfaction in his face. He had suffered too much through the night, through the winter, through the year, to feel like trifling now. The Indian boy had no other idea than the death of the men. He certainly looked blank amazement when, an hour later, the Prince, after discharging their arms, and emptying their catenas of ammuni

A8 THE LAW DIRECTS.

tion, returned them all again, and turned their faces to the city, civilly, almost politely.

The men rode sadly and silently away through the trees, now and then looking back over their shoul ders. The man-hunt was over.