Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/376

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am going to die like a chief. To-morrow I will be with my people on the other side of darkness. They will meet me on my way, for I have had their revenge."

He looked at me sharp and sudden, and his black eyes shot fire. He lifted his hand high above his head and twirled it around as if shaping a beaver hat. His eyes danced with a fierce delight as he hissed between his teeth,

" The Judge ! Spades ! "

He struck out savagely, as if striking with a knife ; as if these men stood before him, and then laid his hand upon his own breast.

Great Heavens ! I said to myself, as he shouldered his rifle and joined his comrades, and it was this boy that killed them ! The Doctor and the Prince had understood this all the time and could not trust me with the secret. They had borne the peril and re proach that they might save these two and bring them back beyond the reach of the white man. I never till that moment knew how great and noble were the two men whose lives mine had touched, spoken to, and parted from as ships that meet and part upon the seas.

We had to fight a mixed body of soldiers and settlers, and a short, but for the Indians bloody, battle took place.

The chief of the Pit River Indians fell, and many of his best warriors around him. Early in the fight I received an ugly cut on the forehead,