company of immigrants was murdered on Crooked creek not far from
the ranch of Van Bremer Bros. on the west and south side of lower
Klamath lake. Who they were, where they came from, how many in the
train, will ever remain an impenetrable mystery. Waiting friends "back
in the States" have probably waited long for some tidings of them, but
tidings, alas, that never came. We only know that the ill-fated train
was destroyed, the members murdered and their wagons burned. Scarface
Charley told John Fairchilds that when he was a little boy the Indians
killed a great many white people at this point. The charred remains of
the wagons and moldering bones of the owners were yet visible when I
visited the spot during the Modoc war. Charley said that two white girls
were held captives and that one morning while encamped at Hot creek the
Indians got into a dispute over the ownership of one of them and to end
matters the chief caught her by the hair and cut her throat. Her body,
Charley said, was thrown into the rim rock above the Dorris house.
Hearing the story in February, 1873, while we were encamped at Van
Bremer's ranch, Colonel C. B. Bellinger and I made a search for the body
of the ill-fated girl. We found the skull and some bones but nothing
more. Enough, however, to verify the story told by Charley. What became
of the other Charley did not know, but her fate can better be imagined
than described.

Chapter IX.

The Ben Wright Massacre.

This so-called massacre has been the source of endless controversy, and
during the progress of the Modoc war afforded Eastern sentimentalists
grounds for shedding crocodile tears in profusion. They found in this
story ample grounds for justification of the foul butchery of General
Canby and the Peace Commission. According to their view, these "poor
persecuted people" were merely paying the white man back in his own
coin, and a lot more such rot.

According to this story, Ben Wright had proposed a treaty and while the
Indians were feasting, all unconscious of intended harm, were set upon
and ninety of their warriors murdered in cold blood. Captain Jack's
father, they said, was among the victims, and it was to avenge this
wrong that Canby and the Peace Commission were murdered under a flag of
truce. The story was without other foundation than the bloody battle
fought by Ben Wright and his Yreka volunteers with the Modoc tribe
during the fall of 1852. I will here give the true story as de