l" that had been for ages their salvation and their
safeguard. The constant rain of bursting shells had filled the caves and
crevices of the lava beds with smoke, and cut off from water, on the
night of the third day they quietly slipped out from under Gen. Gillem's
lines and left--no one knew where.

It may appear incredible, but it is true, that during all this battle of
three days and nights, amid the hum of tons of leaden bullets and the
bursting of countless shells, not a single Indian was killed. We must
except one buck who started in to investigate an unexploded shell. That
buck was going to "get 'um powder and lead out" with file and hatchet,
and was scattered out over the rocks for his inquisitiveness. But the
other Indians were nowhere to be seen. They had passed out under the
line of troops as ants would pass through a sponge. The troops took
possession of the lava beds, the stronghold, but the Indians were gone.
It yet remained for Gen. Gillem to learn another lesson in Indian
warfare.

When the news was received by Gov. Grover that the Indians had left the
stronghold and that the settlers were again exposed, he ordered out two
companies of volunteers, one from Douglas county under Capt. Rodgers and
the other from Jackson county under Capt. Hizer. I was not ordered at
the time to accompany the volunteers, the "mad-cap from Salem" was to be
left behind, but not for long. In spite of the abuse of enemies, mostly
those fellows who sought safety with women and children behind strong
stockades, and the declaration of Mr. Meacham that I was responsible for
the slaughter of men on the 17th of January, "when the brave, reckless,
madcap, Col. Thompson, drove his men against the lines of the Modocs," I
was again sent to the front. In my letters and newspaper articles I had
severely censured Mr. Meacham and he took revenge in his "Wigwam and
Warpath" by declaring the mad-cap was to blame for the slaughter. I
never met him but once after the close of the war and that was in the
library of the old Russ House in San Francisco, where I had gone to call
upon a couple of friends. This was in August after the close of the war.
He was walking back and forth in the library, his head yet bandaged
where the Indians had started to scalp him, when he suddenly turned and
said, "Col. Thompson. I want to speak to you." I excused myself to
Rollin P. Saxe, one of my friends, and walked up to Mr. Meacham. He said
"I had made up my mind