Page:Americans (1922).djvu/219

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or campaigns, the Battle of Castle Rocks, the "Pit River War," and a later campaign in Oregon. But according to one set of stories he figures as a renegade fighting with the Indians against the whites; while according to the other set of stories he is fighting with the whites against the Indians. The chief sources of the renegade story are Life Amongst the Modocs and Memorie and Rime; but he still calls himself a renegade in the introduction to the Bear Edition. On the other hand, there is in existance among the papers preserved by the Miller family a petition to the government for damages, drawn up by Miller but never presented, in which he represents himself as the victim of Indian depredations; and in his annotations of the poem "Old Gib at Castle Rocks," he establishes by a sworn affidavit that this first battle was against the "Modocs and Other Renegades," and that his wound in the head was received while he was fighting at Judge Gibson's side. In Memorie and Rime, however, he declares that the Battle of Castle Rocks was fought under the leadership of De Bloney, to punish unfriendly Indians for burning his camp. But in the introduction to the Bear Edition, he says nothing of De Bloney; the leader of Miller's party is there represented as Mountain Joe, who in the battle unites forces with Judge Gibson, the alcalde of the district.

The disparities in his various accounts may be explained in three ways. First, Miller did in his