Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/18

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and hence were neither gentle or sympathetic. They were honourable, noble, brave and generous, and yet they would have dragged a Trojan around the wall by the heels and thought nothing of it. Coming suddenly into the country with prejudices against and apprehensions of the Indians, of whom they knew nothing save through novels, they of course were in no mood to study their nature. Besides, they knew that they were in a way, trespassers if not invaders, that the Government had never treated for the land or offered any terms whatever to the Indians, and like most men who feel that they are somehow in the wrong, did not care to get on terms with their antagonists. They would have named the Indian a Trojan, and dragged him around, not only by the heels but by the scalp, rather than have taken time or trouble, as a rule, to get in the right of the matter.

II say that the greatest, the grandest body of men that have ever been gathered together since the siege of Troy, was once here on the Pacific. I grant that they were rough enough sometimes. I admit that they took a peculiar delight in periodical six-shooter war dances, these wild-bearded, hairy- breasted men, and that they did a great deal of promiscuous killing among each other, but then they \ did it in such a manly sort of way !

There is another race in these forests. I lived with them nearly five years. A great sin it was thought then, indeed. You do not see the smoke of