STEEP TRAILS 



ened over all the landscape. Then fell the 

 gloaming, making everything still more for- 

 bidding and mysterious. Then, darkness like 

 death. 



Next morning the crisp, sunshiny air made 

 even the Modoc landscape less hopeless, and 

 we ventured down the bluff to the edge of the 

 Lava Beds. Just at the foot of the bluff we 

 came to a square enclosed by a stone wall. This 

 is a graveyard where he bm-ied thirty soldiers, 

 most of whom met their fate out in the Lava 

 Beds, as we learn by the boards marking the 

 graves — a gloomy place to die in, and deadly- 

 looking even without Modocs. The poor fel- 

 lows that he here deserve far more pity than 

 they have ever received. Picking our way over 

 the strange ridges and hollows of the beds, we 

 soon came to a circular flat about twenty 

 yards in diameter, on the shore of the lake, 

 where the comparative smoothness of the lava 

 and a few handfuls of soil have caused the 

 grass tufts to grow taller. This is where Gen- 

 eral Canby was slain while seeking to make 

 peace with the treacherous Modocs. 



Two or three miles farther on is the main 

 stronghold of the Modocs, held by them so 

 long and defiantly against all the soldiers that 

 could be brought to the attack. Indians usu- 

 ally choose to hide in tall grass and bush and 



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