An Indian game of ball is not exactly like America’s great game of base ball. It resembles, somewhat, the old game of shindy or bandy. The field is one-fourth of a mile in length, and one-eighth in width. Stakes are planted at either end, and also in the middle. The players pair off until all are chosen who desire to play. Captains are elected who command the players of each side, and take their stations at the middle stakes, arranging their men on either side, each of whom is provided with a club three feet in length, having a short crook at the lower end. The ball is fashioned out of a tough knot of wood, and is about three inches in diameter, and burnt by fire until it is charred slightly, thus making it of black color. This game is called “ko-ho,” and is won by the party who succeeds in knocking the ball with the club to the home base at the opposite end of the ground.

A game of “ko-ho” attracts much attention; old and young, deaf, dumb, and blind, all go to witness the sport; the latter, probably, to hear the boisterous shouts that attend the playing. Sometimes it is made the occasion for gambling, and then the excitement becomes intense.

Another game is played, with two pieces of wood six inches long and about one inch in diameter, securely connected by a thong of rawhide, about four inches apart; the game, as in “ko-ho,” being to toss this plaything with straight clubs to a home base; the parties struggling as in the other game. Foot-ball is not uncommon, and great contests are had over this game also.

Civilized American gambling cards are common, and are played in games that have no existence among white people; though Indians are expert in all common games, and become, like their white brother, infatuated, and gamble with desperation. Gambling seems to be a passion among them. It is not uncommon to see the younger men of tribes that are uncivilized, seated on the ground, and, with a blanket spread over their limbs, all pointing toward a common centre, gambling with small sticks of wood, the parties alternately mixing their hands under the blanket, changing the sticks from one hand to the other while they sing a low melody; and, when withdrawing the hands, the other Indians point to the hand they suppose to be the holder of the sticks, thus indicating the one selected as the winning hand. When the bets are all made the holder opens both hands, and thus declares the result. The favorite sport of the Indians is horse-racing; but, like other people, they gamble on almost everything. Among them are natural professional gamblers. This passion is a fruitful source of poverty; and many complaints are made by young, green ones, against red-legged sharps.

An Indian woman filed a complaint against “Long John,” an Indian gambler, charging him with having swindled her son, a boy of eighteen or twenty years of age, out of a number of horses that belonged to the family. She asserted that they were poor; that the loss was too much to bear in silence, and that, since her son was a boy, not a man, “Long John” ought to return the horses. This famous gambler was ordered to appear. The case was investigated. “Long John” pleaded guilty as charged in the indictment, but offered the old Indian law as an excuse. He finally proposed to return the horses, on condition that the boy would abandon the habit. The boy promised; the property was returned; and the old woman went away happy in the possession of her restored fortune; for it was to her what business and home are to wealthy people. Under the new law gambling is prohibited by a fine; but the Indians find ways to avoid the law, and gambling is now, and will continue to be, common among them.

These people have a beautiful country, with a cold climate, being at an altitude of four thousand feet above the sea level. Snows of two to four feet deep are not uncommon. The rivers and lakes are well supplied with fish, the mountains with game, the land with berries and wild roots.

Big Klamath marsh is situated twenty miles north of the Great Klamath lake. It is six miles wide and twenty long, and receives its water from the south side of the Blue mountains. This marsh is covered with a growth of pond-lilies, that furnish immense supplies of wo-cus (seed of lily). It is a great rendezvous for several tribes who come to gather wo-cus. The main stem of this plant first blossoms on the top of the water, and, as the seasons advance, the flower matures and rises above the surface one or two feet, and forms a large pod, of four inches in length and three in diameter. The Indians go out among the lilies in canoes, and gather the bowls or pods while green, spread them out in the sun, and when cured they are beaten with sticks until the seeds fall out. These are put in sacks and carried home, cached (buried in cellars) until required for use. Then the seeds are thrown into a shallow basket, with live coals of fire, and roasted, after which it is ground by hand on flat rocks.

It is a nutritious food, and, when properly prepared, not unpalatable. The Klamaths use it in soups, and often prepare it by mixing like flour into cakes, which they bake in the ashes. This article of wo-cus is abundant, available, and altogether sufficient to furnish subsistence for all the Indians in Oregon. To this wo-cus field the natives have for generations past gone for supplies, and in the mean time to exchange slaves, gamble, and hold great councils. Many stirring scenes have been enacted at this place that would furnish foundation for romantic story or bloody tragedy.

The lakes of Klamath are great resorts for the feathery tribes, which come with the spring and sojourn through the summer. The people luxuriate on the eggs of these wild fowls. They go out into the tall tule (grass) in canoes, and collect them in large quantities. “The egg season” lasts until the hatching season is over, the Indians cooking unhatched birds, and eating them with as much avidity and as little thought of indecency as New England people cook and eat clams, oysters, or herrings.

The young fowls are captured in nets. The arrangement is quite cunning, and, although primitive in construction, evinces some inventive genius. A circular net is made three feet in diameter, and to the outer edge are attached eight or ten small rods of half-inch diameter, and about fifteen inches in length; three inches from the lower end, which is sharpened to a point, the net is attached. The upper end of the rods are bevelled on one side, and inserted into a rude socket, in the end of a shaft ten feet long.

Armed with this trap, the hunter crawls on the ground until he is within safe distance of the mother-bird and her little flock, when, suddenly springing up, the old birds, geese or ducks, as the case may be, fly away, while the little ones flee toward the water. The Indian launches the shaft with the net attached in such a way that the net spreads to its utmost size, the sharpened points of the rods pierce the ground, and, the upper end having left the socket on the shaft, stand in circular row, holding the net and contents to the ground.

The Klamath mode of taking fish is peculiar to the Indians of this lake country. A canoe-shaped basket is made, with covering of willow-work at each end, leaving a space of four feet in the middle top of the basket. This basket is carried out into the tules that adjoin the lakes, and sunk to the depth of two or three feet. The fishermen chew dried fish eggs and spit them in the water over the basket, until it is covered with the eggs, and then retire a short distance, waiting until the whitefish come in large numbers over the basket, when the fishermen cautiously approach the covered ends, and raise it suddenly, until the upper edge is above the water, and thus entrap hundreds of fish, that are about eight inches in length. These are transferred to the hands of the squaws, and by them are strung on ropes or sticks and placed over fires until cured, without salt, after which they are stored for winter use. This fish is very oily and nutritious, and makes a valuable food. Indeed, this country is more than ordinarily fruitful, and abounds in resources suited to Indian life.

The lakes are well supplied with various kinds of trout. They are taken in many ways; mostly, however, with hook and line. I remember, on one occasion, going to a small slough making out of the lake among the tules. Being prepared with American equipment of lines and flies, I was sanguine of success; but I was doomed to disappointment so far as catching trout with fly-hooks was concerned. I finally succeeded in capturing a pocketful of large black army-crickets. The first venture with this bait was rewarded by a fine trout of six pounds’ weight. In one hour and a half I had twenty-four fish, whose aggregate weight was one hundred and four pounds. They were mostly golden trout, a species peculiar to Klamath lake. They are similar to other trout, except in the rich golden color of their bodies, and in the shape of their fins. Silver trout are sometimes caught also, they taking their name from their silver sides and the color of their flesh. Lake trout, another species, are very dark; they are sharp biters, and very game when hooked. Salmon trout, as the name indicates, resemble salmon in every way; so much so that none but an expert could distinguish the two.

Still another kind of the trout family are also in abundance, called dog trout. They live on the younger fish of their own species; do not run in schools, but solitary and alone, devouring the small ones. I have caught them with the tails of little fish sticking in their mouths. Brook trout may be found in the smaller streams; they are identical with those of New England.

The wild game consists of deer and elk, which are still abundant and furnish subsistence; and, until these people sold their birthrights and received in exchange therefor clothing and blankets,—a mere mess of pottage,—afforded material for warming their bodies. These sources of supply, together with the wild fowls, which congregate in innumerable quantities, all go to make up a country well adapted to wild Indian life, requiring but reasonable exertion to secure subsistence and clothing.

Although the country is high and cold, and the major portion covered in winter with deep snows, there are small valleys and belts of country where snow never lies on the ground for any considerable length of time, and the stock cattle and horses live through the winter without care.

When the railroad shall have been built, connecting the lake country with the outside world, it will afford large supplies of fish, game, wild fowls, eggs, feathers, ice, and lumber of the choicest kinds. Already has the keen eye of the white man discovered its many inducements and tempting offers of business.

Big Klamath lake is twenty miles wide and forty miles long; a most beautiful sheet of water, dotted with small islands. Its average depth is, perhaps, forty feet, surrounded on two sides with heavy forests of timber; on the others, with valleys of sure and productive soil, when once science shall have taught the people how to accommodate the agriculture to the climate. This lake has a connection with those below, called Link river, a short stream of but four miles, through which vast volumes of water find outlet, over sweeping rapids, falling at the rate of one hundred feet to the mile.

The power that wastes itself in Link river would move machinery that would convert the immense forests into merchandise, and put music into a million spindles, giving employment to thousands of hands who are willing to toil for reward.

Nature has also favored this wonderful country with steam-power beyond comparison; great furnaces under ground, fed by invisible hands, send the steam through rocky fissures or escape-pipes to the surface. Near Link river, two of these escape-pipes emit the stifling steam constantly. Approaching cautiously, a sight may be had of the boiling waters beneath. Lower down the hill it arises in a stream, sufficient to run a saw-mill, coming out boiling hot, and flowing away in rippling current. Along the banks of this stream flowers bloom the year round, and vegetation is ever green for several rods from the banks. The scene from the ridge on the north that overlooks Link valley is one of rare beauty.

Standing in snow two feet deep, on a cold morning in December, 1869, my eyes first took in the landscape. Surrounded by lofty pines, and, looking southward, we caught sight of the Lost river county, the home of the Modocs, bathed in sunshine, clear, cold sunshine; the almost boundless tracts of sage-brush land, stretching away to the foot of the Cascade mountains on the right, until sage-brush plain was lost in pine-wood forest. On the left front we caught sight of Tu-le lake, lying calmly beneath its crystal covering of glittering ice; and, still left, Lost-river mountains, and beside them the stream whose water drank up the blood of many battles in times past. Following its line toward its source, we see a mountain cleft in twain to make passage for the waters of Clear lake, after they have tunnelled Saddle mountains for ten miles, and come again to human sight.

We had been so entertained with the splendor of the winter scene, that we had overlooked its grandest feature, until our fretful horses, which had caught sight of it before we had, became restless and impatient to bathe their icy hoofs in the beautiful valley at our feet, and refused longer to wait for us to paint on our memory the panorama.

Dismounting, we, too, caught sight of one of nature’s wonderful freaks. Down below us, in the immense amphitheatre, we discovered columns of steam rising from the smooth prairie hill-side, ascending in fantastic puffs, and mixing with the atmosphere; sometimes cut off, by sudden gusts of cold winds, into minute clouds, that swing out and lose themselves in strange company of fiercer breath from the mountains covered with snow and ice.

Look again to the right, and see the constant steam vapor that comes with hot breath from the boiling spring, where it runs in grandeur, and gradually warms the soil and shrubbery that surrounds its channel. Following the curve of this stream, see the clouds of steam decrease as it flows out on the plain, until, at last, its warm breath is lost to sight in the high tule grass of Lower Klamath lake. Come back along the line and see the fringe of grass and flowers that exult in life, despite the winter’s cold; and other of nature’s children, too, are standing with feet in the soft banks, and inhaling the warm breath. See the long line of sleek cattle and horses that have driven away the mule, deer and antlered elk, and now claim mastership of what God has done for this strange valley. Even dumb brutes enjoy this refuge from the cold storms of the plains; thus cheating old winter out of the privilege of punishing them.

Yielding to the importunity of our restless steed, we remount, and, giving rein, are carried rapidly down the mountain side, at a pace that would be dangerous on clumsy eastern ponies, until reaching the valley, and feeling the soft turf beneath us, we improve the invitation to warm our hands at this gentle outlet to one of nature’s seething caldrons.

Gathering a bouquet of wild flowers from this fairy garden, surrounded by snows and ice, we resume our journey, for we are now bound for the home of Captain Jack.