Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/485

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OPENING OF THE MODOC WAR.
473

fired upon and wounded, Nus fatally, within half a mile of the house, which they reached before Nus died. Applegate, Brown, Burnett, and others then went in various directions to warn the settlers that hostilities had begun, which left but a small force at Crawley's to protect the wounded and the other inmates.

During the forenoon Crawley came to Jackson with the information that the Indians on the north side under two noted Modocs, Hooker Jim, and Curlyheaded Doctor, were preparing to attack his place. On this information, he mounted his men and rode rapidly up the river eight miles to the ford, where alone the cavalry could cross, arriving at Crawley's late in the afternoon. In the meantime the Indians burned some hay, and committed some minor depredations in sight of the troops. Darkness brought a cessation of hostilities.


While these events were taking place, no one seemed to have thought of the danger that threatened the settlers in the lower country around Tule lake. Captain Jackson was ignorant that there M^ere any inhabitants in the vicinity who had not been warned; but on the morning of the 30th, having heard that there was a family named Boddy about three and a half miles below Crawley's, he sent a detachment, guided by Crawley, to ascertain their condition. At Boddy's house no one was found; but everything being in order, with no signs of violence, and the horses being in the corral, Crawley came to the conclusion that the family had been warned, and had fled southward, warning others, and he therefore returned with a corresponding report. Such, however, was not the fact.

While the fight was going on, during the morning of the 29th, a party of Modocs, escaping and making their way toward their afterward celebrated stronghold in the lava beds, had killed three men and one boy of this family who were found in the woods at work cut-