Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/354

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over the top of another structure that clung to the steep hill-side on which the rude and horrible prison was built. A mattress on the floor ; filth and vermin everywhere ; not a chair, not a drop of water half the time ; not a breath of air. The food was cold refuse of some low chop-house. You could some times see teeth-marks in the soggy biscuits. Some sovereign, no doubt, had a contract for feeding the prisoners, and was doing well.

Low-bred and half-read lawyers beset me. They would tell the jailer I had sent for them, and thus gain admittance. Somehow they thought I had or could obtain money. They were coarse, insolent, and persistent in their efforts to get into the secrets of my life. At last, when they got what jewelry and few available gold pieces I had, and could not get my secrets, I saw them no more. If the treatment I received at the hands of these wretches is a fair example, then here is a wrong that should be corrected, for a prisoner, let him be never so guilty, has more to fear from these fellows than from his judges.

Many people visited me, but they could not remain long in the wretched pen; and as I would never speak to them, I had but little sympathy. Some times for a while I was out of my mind. At such times I would write strange, wild songs, in the Indian tongue, all over the walls.

At length the kind young man mentioned at my capture came with a young lawyer named Holbrook. This young lawyer was a gentleman, kind-hearted and