with Steele, who it was thought might be useful in communicating with Jack, was then on his way to the front. Before his arrival, however, Whittle had a second interview with Jack, whom he met a mile from the lava-beds with a company of forty warriors heavily equipped with needle-guns and small arms, but asserting that he only wanted peace, to prove which he pointed to the fact that the houses of Dorris, Fairchild, Van Bremer, and Small were still left standing, and again consenting to talk with the men before named. Growing impatient, he expressed a desire to have the meeting over, and Dave, one of his company, returned to camp with Whittle, and carried back word that Fairchild would make a preliminary visit on the 26th to arrange for the official council.[1]
Accordingly, on that day Fairchild, accompanied, not by Whittle and Matilda, but by T. F. Riddle and his Indian wife, Toby,[2] as interpreters, repaired to the rendezvous. He was charged to say that the commissioners would come in good faith to make peace, and that he was delegated to fix upon a place and time for the council. But the only place where Jack would consent to meet them was in the lava-beds; and as Fairchild would not agree that the commissioners should go unarmed into the stronghold, he returned to camp without making any appointment. With him were allowed to come several well-known murderers, Hooker Jim, Curly-headed Doctor, and the chief of the Hot Creeks, Shackriasty Jim. They came to make terms with Lalake, a chief of the
- ↑ One of the surgeons in camp stated, concerning the second interview with Jack, that 10 of his followers were for peace and 10 against it, while the others were indifferent. Yreka despatches, in Oregonian, Feb. 25, 1873.
- ↑ Whittle and Riddle belonged to that class of white men known on the frontier as squaw men. They were not necessarily bad or vicious, but in all disturbances of the kind in which the people were then plunged were an element of mischief to both sides. Having Indian wives, they were forced to keep on terms of friendship with the Indians whatever their character; and owing allegiance to the laws of the state and their own race, they had at least to pretend to be obedient to them. It is easy to see that their encouragement of the Modocs, direct or indirect, had a great deal to do with bringing on and lengthening the war.
