262 THE MODOK. 
insincere and cowardly man—such was his physique. He is described as 
having an undecided and irresolute air. At the last, when adversity began 
to overcloud his fortunes, he signally failed to command the obedience of 
his followers, and even in the height of his prosperity he rather followed 
than led the bolder spirits. 
He had an evil record from the beginning, a record showing his native 
baseness. He ascended to the supremacy only by rebelling against his 
lawful chief, old Skonchin, and by pandering to the worst elements of his 
tribe on the reservation. 
Soon after he left the reserve he gambled with Captain George, a 
Mukaluk chief, until he lost twenty-one ponies, then refused to give them 
up; and, finally, because his following was the larger of the two, and 
Captain George’s was unarmed, he began to bluster, threatened George’s 
life, and at last coolly drove the ponies away. 
There is no doubt that he originally opposed the scheme of massacre- 
ing the commissioners, but he was overborne by the fiery young warriors 
of his band, and he weakly allowed himself to be led into the plot and 
become the chief actor in that perfidious butchery ; and then, in his dying 
speech, he proposed that a relation should be executed in his stead; and 
when the proposition was rejected cravenly followed after General Wheaton 
to know if there was not yet a prospect that it would be accepted! Two 
passages in his speech reveal the man he was: ‘It is terrible to think I have 
to die. When I look at my heart I would like to live till I died a natural 
death.” And this: “IT always had a good heart toward the white people. 
Scarface Charley is a relative of mine; he is worse than I am, and I propose 
to make an exchange and turn him over to be executed in my place.” 
John Skonchin, brother to old Skonchin, desperado that he was, should 
go down to posterity as the real chieftain and moral hero of the Modok 
war. In his last speech he pleaded not for himself. He pleaded for his 
children, that they might be tenderly cared for and given into the charge 
of his brother. He expressed himself willing to die for the misdeeds of his 
young men. He was much moved by the words of the ‘Sunday Doctor”, 
and said: “ Perhaps the Great Spirit will say, ‘Skonchin, my law, which 
was in force among the whites, has killed you” * * * You have tried 
