Page:The Indian History of the Modoc War.djvu/147

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CHAPTER XIII.

Colonel Mason gets orders to trail Captain Jack and Schonchin down.—Jack and his followers meet Ha-kar-gar-ush and his men and women near Steele's Swamp, Calif.—Ha-kar-gar-ush and Captain Jack make their camps together, north of Steele's Swamp a short distance.—General Wheaton with a company of cavalrymen with ScarFace Charley and Bogus Charley as scouts takes up Captain Jack's trail near Clear Lake, California, and follows it to their camp.—They had a sharp running fight for about seven miles.—Some Indians captured at camp.—None were killed on either side.

I will now lead the kind reader back to Captain Jack and Schonchin and see what they have been doing since Long Jim and his father joined them in their camp on the east side of Bryant Mountain. About the middle of May, 1873, Long Jim and his father left Jack's camp and went to Yainax. Jack, a few days after, went towards Steele Swamp, California. When he got near Steele Swamp, he met Ha-kar-gar-ush and a few of his men and families. Ha-kar-gar-ush is known now by the name of Ben Lawver. When Captain Jack and Black Jim had the row in the lava beds and finally split up, Ha-kar-gar-ush or Ben Lawver, his father and some ten or fifteen others went towards Happy Camp, California, but after traveling all day stayed over night about eight or nine miles south of Clear Lake, California. They stayed right there, game being plentiful. One day one of the young men saw quite a bunch of horsemen. He reported to Ha-kar-garush. So the next afternoon Ha-kar-gar-ush moved northeast a few miles. There they met Capt. Jack and Schonchin so when they all got together there was quite a little crowd of them, but they were mostly women and children. Everything seemed to be all right. The women all turned out and gathered kash or epaws, a little potato that grew all through the Modoc country. What few men there was there fished and killed other game such as deer, antelope, etc. One day, about noon, Capt. Jack's man on picket duty came in and reported to Jack that there was two horsemen approaching

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