Sconchin said: "Go Fort
Klamath, all Injun heap hungry, now ketchem fish, eat plenty, by
and by go to fort."
I had George Jones turn and ride back to hurry the soldiers up,
for I did not deem it a safe plan for two of us to try to take the
whole crowd prisoners, for even though they had no arms they might
scatter all over the country and then we could not get them only
by killing them, and that I did not want to do. While I am in no
wise a friend to a hostile; I believe in giving even an Indian
that which is justly due him, and I must admit that all through
this Modoc war I could not help, in a measure, feeling sorry for
the Modocs, particularly Captain Jack, for I knew that through the
negligence of one agent and the outrageous attack upon Jack by the
squad of soldiers on Lost river, while there catching fish to keep
his people from starving, he had been driven and dragged into this
war, and I do not believe to-day, nor never did believe, that
Captain Jack ought to have been hanged.
I have often been asked, since, what I thought of the arrangements
Mr. Berry made for the meeting of Gen. Canby, Col. Thomas and
Captain Jack, but I have always refrained from answering that
question any farther than that it seemed to me that a school boy
ten years of age should have known better than to have made such a
bargain as he did, knowing the nature of Indians as well as he
claimed to.
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