any punishment at all, but voted for the mitigation. The motion carried; the poor innocent Indians were led away to receive the punishment; but I must say that the executioner of the sentence did not lay on the lash in a severe and brutal manner. The Indians were told to go; and they stayed not on the order of their going, but left with good speed. Such unjustified acts are pregnant with trouble, and the Indian war followed soon after. There lies east of the southern portion of Rogue River Valley a wide slope of land free from timber and ending at the rim of the mountain, and beyond and easterly from which--there is a high mountain table land--covered with fine green timber, among which sleep verdant valleys whose arms extend like the radius of a star, in every direction. Some of these valleys are wet and marshy, while others are dry and produce a rich and abundant growth of bunch grass. There was a large number of stock pastured in this section of country. Occasionally a small band of the fattest and largest steers would mysteriously disappear from this range. The number disappearing increased each successive year. The cattle men became alarmed, and organized an armed and mounted patrol to keep guard and watch over their stock. In the fall of '51 it was reported that some five or six fine steers were missing from their accustomed range. A search was immediately made and the trail of the missing cattle discovered. It led over the rim into the mountain basin or plateau, above referred to and across a marsh, now, and from this circumstance, called Dead Indian Prairie, and up a narrow arm of the prairie to a mountain culmination in a lonely spot, surrounded on nearly all sides by a dense growth of tall chapparal brush. Here the carcasses of the cattle, also the bodies of three Indians were found, with all the indications that they had been recently killed. These patrol men said that they also found the meat of the slaughtered cattle on platforms, with a slow fire of hardwood still burning beneath them. Thus the process of jerking preparatory to packing was in full operation. They gave it as their opinion that the cattle had been stolen by Klamath Indians, and that a party of predatory Modocs came upon them a short time before the patrol men appeared, and, finding a good opportunity to supply themselves with food, shot down the Klamaths; but that before they could appropriate to themselves the booty, the whites made their appearance and the Modocs hid away in the chapparal brush. This theory was received by their employers as rational and satisfactory. In '58 I visited this country for the first time--having heard the story, I sought the spot where the tragedy occurred. There were still the bleached bones of the cattle and the whitened skeletons of three Indians. The platform was still standing, and the extinguished brands of charcoal and the ashes, of the vine-maple fire still existed.