STEEP TRAILS 



Deadly was the task of storming such a 

 place. The breech-loading rifles of the Indians 

 thrust through chinks between the rocks were 

 ready to pick off every soldier who showed him- 

 self for a moment, while the Indians lay utterly 

 invisible. They were familiar with byways 

 both over and under ground, and could at any 

 time sink suddenly out of sight like squirrels 

 among the loose boulders. Our bewildered 

 soldiers heard them shooting, now before, now 

 behind them, as they glided from place to 

 place through fissures and subterranean passes, 

 all the while as invisible as Gyges wearing his 

 magic ring. To judge from the few I have seen, 

 Modocs are not very amiable-looking people 

 at best. When, therefore, they were crawling 

 stealthily in the gloomy caverns, unkempt and 

 begrimed and with the glare of war in their 

 eyes, they must have seemed very demons of 

 the volcanic pit. 



Captain Jack's cave is one of the many 

 somber cells of the castle. It measures twenty- 

 five or thirty feet in diameter at the entrance, 

 and extends but a short distance in a hori- 

 zontal direction. The floor is littered with the 

 bones of the animals slaughtered for food diu-- 

 ing the war. Some eager archaeologist may 

 hereafter discover this cabin and startle his 

 world by announcing another of the Stone Age 



96 



