While all this was going on another force, consisting of a dozen settlers, had come down from the Bybee ranch to capture the Hot Creek band on the opposite side of the river from Jack’s camp.  O. A. Brown had arrived there in the evening but said nothing to any one until 2 o’clock in the morning, when he roused them up and told them that the soldiers would attack the Indians at daylight.  They arrived just as Jackson lined his men up on the opposite side.  Jud Small, a stock man, was riding a young horse and at the crack of the first gun his horse began bucking.  Everything was confusion, the men retreating to a small cabin a hundred yards away, except Small, who was holding on to his horse for dear life all this time.  Over wickiups, squaws, bucks and children the frightened beast leaped.  Just how he got out safe among his companions Small never knew, but he escaped, only to be desperately wounded in the first fight in the lava beds, and later finding a watery grave in Klamath river while sailing a pleasure boat.

After dismounting his men, Major Jackson requested Captain Applegate to go forward among the Indians and tell them they must surrender and go back to the reservation.  But scarcely had Captain Applegate reached the center of the village, when he saw the women running and throwing themselves face downward in a low place between the two lines.  He at once called to Lieutenant Boutelle to “look out, they are going to fire.”  Scarcely had the words escaped his lips when the Indians, concealed under their wickiups, opened a galling fire on the line of troops.  Applegate made his way back to the line as best he could and as he reached the line he picked up a carbine that had fallen from the hand of a wounded soldier.  The poor fellow had just strength enough to unbuckle his belt and hand it to Captain Applegate, who now called to Lieutenant Boutelle that “if we don’t drive them out of their camp they will kill us all.”  Boutelle then ordered a charge, and drove the Indians out of their camp, through the brush and out into the open hills beyond.  But this was accomplished by the loss of several men killed and wounded.  One Indian had been killed, a Columbia, one of the most desperate of the renegade band.  When Applegate got back to where Jackson was standing he had all the women and children gathered around him and while several men had been killed or wounded, he deemed the trouble at an end.

While the above events were transpiring, Dave Hill, a Klamath Indian, swam the river and drove in all the Modocs’ horses.  With the women, children and horses in their possession all that remained for Captain Jackson to do to insure the surrender of the men, was to take them to the reservation and hold them.  What was the surprise of Captain Applegate, therefore, when Jackson announced his intention of turning them all loose.  In vain he and Dave Hill protested, but to no purpose.  Jackson declared he was short of ammunition; besides, must care for his wounded men.  He then told the squaws to pack up their horses and go to the men and tell them to come to the reservation.  No more mad, idiotic piece of folly was ever perpetrated by a man than this move of Captain Jackson.