work; how long did it take Gen. Wheaton to get this far?” Fairchilds, as brave a man as ever trod in shoe leather, replied:  “General, I do not remember exactly, but as near as I can judge it was about twenty minutes.”  That remark settled the friendly relations between the two men.  I want to say here that Gillem was not the man for the place.  He was self-willed, self-opinionated, knew nothing about Indian warfare; in fact, got his shoulder straps through the enterprise of one of his officers and the treachery of a woman, in killing the Confederate Gen. Morgan.  He had nothing else to recommend him, and would not take advice from old veterans like Green, Mason, Bernard, Perry and Hasbrook—­men who had grown gray in frontier service.

At 9 o’clock on the morning of the second day, Col.  Green ordered an advance.  The men answered with a cheer, and soon reached a position on top of the ridge next to Jack’s camp.  Some of the other lines also slowly advanced during the day.  Towards evening another desperate attempt was made by the Indians to break the line between them and water.  At this time a very near approach to a battle was reached.  Volley after volley of rifles rang out, and mingled with the yells of the savages and roar of the artillery made some of the old veterans of the Civil war think they were really in a fight.  All the same, men were being killed and others wounded, even though there was no battle.

Col.  Green realized that if the Indians could be kept from the water, they would have to surrender or leave the stronghold, and he held on with the tenacity of a bulldog.  During the night the squaws went out under the lines and returned with a load of snow, but the warm spell of weather melted the snow rapidly and soon this source was cut off.  Still the outlaws held on, and for three days and nights, pressed in by men and guns on every side, subjected to a fire from four sides, with five mortars and three howitzers raining shells upon them, they held to the “hole in the wall” that had been for ages their salvation and their safeguard.  The constant rain of bursting shells had filled the caves and crevices of the lava beds with smoke, and cut off from water, on the night of the third day they quietly slipped out from under Gen. Gillem’s lines and left—­no one knew where.

It may appear incredible, but it is true, that during all this battle of three days and nights, amid the hum of tons of leaden bullets and the bursting of countless shells, not a single Indian was killed.  We must except one buck who started in to investigate an unexploded shell.  That buck was going to “get ’um powder and lead out” with file and hatchet, and was scattered out over the rocks for his inquisitiveness.  But the other Indians were nowhere to be seen.  They had passed out under the line of troops as ants would pass through a sponge.  The troops took possession of the lava beds, the stronghold, but the Indians were gone.  It yet remained for Gen. Gillem to learn another lesson in Indian warfare.