256 THE MODOK. 
times gather and parch them, then eat them in a bow] of milk with a spoon— 
a dish which is very relishable. It forms a large source of winter provis- 
ions for this tribe. 
Another thing which is of much importance in their stores is the kais, 
or kés, a root about an inch long and as large as one’s little finger, of a 
bitter-sweetish and agreeable taste, something like ginseng. I presume it 
is a variety of cammas. Early in June they quit their warm winter-lodges, 
and scatter about in small parties or families, camping in brush-wood booths, 
for the purpose of gathering this root. They find it in moist, rich places 
near the edge of swamps. With a small stick, fire-hardened at the end, a. 
the 
men and children are munching it all day—or dried and sacked up for 
squaw will root out a half bushel or more in a day. It is eaten raw 
winter. 
They were formerly accustomed to cache large quantities of wokus 
and cammas in the hills for safe-keeping during the winter. Forty years 
ago or more, as they relate, there fell an unprecedented snow, 7 feet deep 
on the level plain, so that for many days and weeks together they were 
unable to reach the caches, and there came upon them a grievous famine. 
They ate up all their rawhides, thongs, and moccasins, and would all have 
perished if it had not happened that a herd of antelope, struggling through 
the snow down to Rhett Lake, got upon the ice and broke in, when they 
were captured, and their flesh saved one village alive to tell the tale. 
In Lost River they find a remarkable supply and variety of fish. 
There are black, silver-sided, and speckled trout, of which first two species 
individuals are said to be caught weighing twenty-five pounds; buffalo-fish, 
from five to twelve pounds; and very large, fine suckers, such only in name 
and appearance, for they are no bonier than ordinary fishes. In spawning- 
time the fish run up from Clear Lake in extraordinary numbers, so that the 
Indians only have to place a slight obstruction in the stream to catch them 
by thousands. Herein lies one good reason for the passionate attachment 
which the Modok felt for Lost River. But the salmon, king of the finny 
tribes, they had not, for that royal fish ascends the Klamath only to the first 
rapids below Lower Klamath Lake. Above them there is no deposit of 
gravel suitable for it to spawn in. They do not smoke-dry for winter con- 
