The train arrived the next day. A council was held with the Indians, and they were exhorted to continue their friendly attitude, and keep their young men from war. The emissaries of the Yakimas had left the mission only five days before the arrival of the party, having despaired of its crossing the mountains. All sorts of rumors were rife, but nothing certain except that the tribes below were in arms, blocking up the road, and that they had threatened to cut off the party, Pu-pu-mox-mox especially having made his boast that he would take Governor Stevens’s scalp. It was learned, however, that four men, who had brought up the goods for the proposed Spokane council, with the unfortunate agent Bolon, were at Antoine Plante’s, and that fifteen miners were also at that point, fearing to go below on account of the hostiles, and virtually blockaded by the Spokanes.

Governor Stevens at once determined to proceed to the Spokane to rescue these men, and if possible to restrain the Spokanes from hostilities. He dispatched Craig with all but three of the Nez Perce chiefs to Lapwai, there to confer with Lawyer, assemble the nation, and prepare them for the governor’s arrival. He was also instructed to send an express to the Spokane with information of his success, and the disposition of the Nez Perces. The chiefs retained with the party were Looking Glass, Spotted Eagle, and Three Feathers.

As at Hell Gate, the governor’s determination rested in his own breast, and it was currently reported and believed that the party would move directly south along the base of the mountains to the Nez Perce country, the shortest and safest route to the refuge of that friendly tribe. To move away from it and adventure sixty miles farther among the supposedly hostile, and certainly disaffected, Spokanes seemed little short of madness. In the evening some of the men, in discussing the matter, declared that if the governor started for the Spokane, they would not follow him, but would take the Nez Perce trail; but Higgins swore that no man should desert the governor if he started for Hell, and the incipient mutiny went no farther. The next day, November 27, the party marched down the Cœur d’Alene River to Wolf’s Lodge, nineteen miles, and, starting at daylight the following morning and making a rapid, forced march of forty miles, reached the Spokane village, just below Antoine Plante’s, before sunset.

The last four miles across the prairie was made at a round trot, and within thirty minutes after first sighting the rapidly approaching column, the astonished Indians beheld thirty well-armed men gallop boldly up, range themselves in front of their lodges ready to open fire, and heard the peremptory summons to decide instantly for peace or war. Needless to say that they, too, were friendly and for peace. They were taken completely by surprise, and had no alternative but to choose the olive branch. Only three hours before they had heard that Governor Stevens had gone down the Missouri.

The Indian employees and goods and the miners were safe. They had built a blockhouse, and were on terms of armed truce with the Indians rather than actual hostility. Before midnight Indian messengers were dispatched to Colville and the various camps, summoning the head chief Garry and the other chiefs, the Hudson Bay Company’s factor, McDonald, and the Jesuit missionaries to meet the governor in council at Plante’s. It is noteworthy that during all these troubles the Hudson Bay Company people and the Catholic missionaries were not molested by the hostile Indians.

The governor now gave his party, augmented by the four rescued employees, a military organization and the name of Stevens Guards, the name being the choice of the men, and appointed as officers C.P. Higgins, captain; W.H. Pearson, first lieutenant; A.H. Robie, second lieutenant; and S.S. Ford, third lieutenant. He also appointed Doty lieutenant-colonel, aide-de-camp, and adjutant, and Tappan captain and quartermaster. The miners were also formed into a military company, and adopted the name of Spokane Invincibles, with Judge B.F. Yantis as captain. The governor ordered guards regularly mounted at night.

A half-breed, who had been captured by Pu-pu-mox-mox and set free by him on condition that he would take a message to the governor to the effect that he, Pu-pu-mox-mox, intended to take the governor’s scalp, came and delivered his message.

CHAPTER XXXV
STORMY COUNCIL WITH THE SPOKANES

During the next few days the Indians were gathering for the council. Garry and a party of Cœur d’Alenes came on the 29th, and McDonald with the Colville chiefs, the missionaries, and four white miners on December 2. The council lasted three days, December 3, 4, 5, and was marked by disaffected and at times openly hostile views and expressions and uncertain purposes, on the part of the Indians, and steadfast determination to hold their friendship and restrain them from war, on the part of the governor. The Spokanes openly sympathized with the hostiles. Many of their young braves had joined them. They insisted that no white troops should enter their country, and urged the governor to make peace with the Yakimas, for the rumor was current that the troops had driven them across the Columbia and into the region claimed by the Spokanes. They objected to the whites taking up their land before they had made treaties and sold it, and were much stirred up because a number of Hudson Bay Company ex-employees at Colville had staked out claims, and filed with Judge Yantis the declaratory statements claiming them under the Donation Act. Kam-i-ah-kan’s emissaries had imbued them with all kinds of falsehoods concerning the war and its causes, and the purposes of the whites, particularly of Governor Stevens, and what he did and said at the Walla Walla council. They were to be driven by soldiers from their own country, and forced to go on the Nez Perce reservation without any treaty or compensation. They were to be deported west of the Cascades, and shipped across seas to an unknown and dreadful doom. Highly colored but imaginary stories of wrong and outrage inflicted by whites upon Indians were industriously circulated, and equally mythical tales of Indian victories and exploits.

Governor Stevens met their excited and hostile talk with a firm and unruffled front. He appealed to the well-known facts,—to the policy he had uniformly and consistently urged upon them and upon all the tribes since first coming to the country, the policy of peace and friendship with the whites, and of adopting the civilization of the whites, and which had been proclaimed as from the housetops, and established by treaty at the Walla Walla council, in the presence and hearing of their own head chief, Garry, and others of their number. He showed them how this policy was for their own benefit and protection, and referred to the Blackfoot council, and the peace he had there established, of which the Nez Perce chiefs present could give them full particulars. He declared he was ready to make a treaty with them on the spot, if they desired one, but in the troubled state of affairs would not himself urge it. By this firm and conciliatory treatment he at length brought them to a more reasonable state of mind, and induced them to lay aside all thoughts of war and preserve their friendship with the whites. The results of this remarkable conference are graphically stated in his own words:—

The Spokanes preserved the friendship thus gained and confirmed, and abstained from all acts of hostility for two years after this council, and until Colonel E.J. Steptoe, against their warning and protest, entered their country with a force of two hundred dragoons. Then they flew to arms, attacked, defeated, and drove him in precipitate retreat eighty miles to the bank of Snake River, where his men were only saved from massacre by the friendly Nez Perces, who ferried them across the river in their canoes, and boldly interposed between them and the victorious Spokanes.

Soon after reaching the Spokane the governor was led to distrust Looking Glass from his changed demeanor and countenance, and set a faithful half-breed interpreter to keep watch of him. The spy saw him enter Garry’s lodge late at night, and, stealing up to and lying prone beside it, overheard the talk between the chiefs, in which Looking Glass disclosed a plot on his part to entrap the governor and his party when they went among the Nez Perces, and compel him to enlarge their reservation to the bounds first proposed by Looking Glass at the Walla Walla council, and to exact such other payments and advantages as amounted to a swingeing ransom. Looking Glass strongly advised Garry to adopt a similar course, and both chiefs seemed bent upon using their advantages to the utmost. On receiving this alarming report the governor instantly, but secretly, dispatched a messenger to Lapwai, informing Craig of the plot, and instructing him how best to forestall and frustrate it by advising with Lawyer, and committing the other chiefs to a firm adherence to the treaty and active support of the governor. Thus forewarned, he was enabled to frustrate the designs of the treacherous chief without his suspecting that they had been discovered.

The following extracts from the speeches show the excited and disaffected mood in which they entered the council. Observe in Garry’s second speech his artful advice in aid of his friend Looking Glass’s design to enlarge the reservation:—

In these speeches can be seen the reflection of the tales spread by the Yakima emissaries. It was afterwards learned that some of the Yakimas had really crossed the Columbia to avoid an expedition into the Yakima valley, under Major Rains with a force of regulars, and Colonel J.W. Nesmith with a detachment of Oregon volunteers, which proved abortive, except in the loss of many of the horses and mules belonging to the regulars, which were run off by the hostile Yakimas.

After the council the Indians were so friendly and well disposed that they readily exchanged their fine, fresh horses for the jaded and tired animals of the party and the Indian goods, which had been brought up for the now deferred treaty, and even sold several rifles, which were used to arm the Spokane Invincibles.

On the afternoon of the 6th, with transportation reduced to twelve days’ supplies, packs to eighty pounds, the best train of the season, and the party, with the recent accessions, forty-eight strong, the governor struck out for the Nez Perce country, “in condition,” he says, “that if the Nez Perces were really hostile, and I was not strong enough to fight, I could make a good run!” He moved three miles to the Spokane River, crossed it just above the falls, and encamped on the site of the present city of that name. The march thence to the Clearwater and Lapwai, a distance of one hundred and eight miles, occupied four days, and was made in the midst of a driving and continuous storm of cold rain, sleet, and snow, wetting and chilling every one to the bone. The trail was excessively muddy and slippery, and for half a day’s travel the snow was ten inches deep. On the second day an express from Craig brought the cheering news that the Nez Perces were faithful, and the whole tribe ready to support the governor to the death. And on reaching camp the same day two Frenchmen or Canadians were met making their way from Walla Walla to the Spokane, who reported the valley overrun with hostile Indians, the settlers killed or driven below, and their stock swept off by the savages. Fifty miles from the Spokane they struck the same trail passed over in June on the way to the Cœur d’Alene, and pursued it for twenty miles, crossing the Palouse, where an enemy was most likely to be encountered, but no Indians were seen. The Clearwater, or Kooskooskia, was crossed just above the mouth of the Lapwai. The river was barely fordable, with a powerful current and rocky bottom, and two riding horses were swept off their feet into deep water and drowned, making no effort to swim, benumbed in the icy water, and their riders barely escaped a similar fate. Moving seven miles up the Lapwai, Craig’s hospitable house, and the end of this severe march, the most comfortless and trying of the whole trip, was reached, and camp gladly made on the 11th.

CHAPTER XXXVI
THE FAITHFUL NEZ PERCES

Although it was now in the midst of winter, and the ground was covered with snow, Lawyer had assembled two hundred and eight lodges, containing over two thousand Indians, and able to muster eight hundred warriors. An animated council was at once held. The council lodge was a hundred feet in length, built of poles, mats, and skins, and in this assembled two hundred chiefs and principal men, Lawyer presiding. An ox had been killed, and young men, who officiated for the occasion, roasted or boiled the meat at fires in the lodge, and handed it around in large pans, from which each person selected such choice pieces as suited his fancy.

The scheme of Looking Glass found no adherent, indeed was not broached, and the unanimous resolve was not only to maintain their friendship to the whites and stand by their treaty, but to escort Governor Stevens with two hundred and fifty of their bravest and best-armed warriors, stark buffalo hunters and Blackfoot fighters every one, and force their way through the masses of hostile Indians gathered in the Walla Walla valley.

Looking Glass, too, was among the first in his professions of friendship. Jealousy of Lawyer, and the hope of increasing his own influence among his people by obtaining great and exceptional advantages for them, were probably the causes of his unworthy plot, rather than actual enmity to the whites.

And chief after chief spoke in similar vein.

Here was evidence that the treacherous chiefs were inciting hostilities immediately after signing the treaties.

At this juncture an Indian runner was announced from the Walla Walla valley with the important news that a force of five hundred Oregon volunteers, under Colonel Kelly (late United States senator), after a severe battle of four days’ duration, had defeated the hostiles, and driven them from the valley. The absence of the Palouse Indians during the forced march through their country was now explained. They were fighting the volunteers at that very time. The way being thus opened, Governor Stevens was enabled to dispense with the proffered aid of the Nez Perces; but in order to confirm their fidelity and good feeling, he invited a hundred warriors to accompany his party as a guard of honor as far as the Walla Walla valley.

It was a clear, bright, frosty December morning that the mingled cavalcade of white and Indian left behind the hospitable lodges of the Nez Perces, and filed along the banks of the Lapwai and Kooskooskia. Rarely has the Clearwater reflected a more picturesque or jovial crew. Here were the gentlemen of the party, with their black felt hats and heavy cloth overcoats; rough-clad miners and packers; the mountain men, with buckskin shirts and leggings and fur caps; the long-eared pack-mules, with their bulky loads; and the blanketed young braves, with painted visage, and hair adorned with eagle feathers, mounted on sleek and spirited mustangs, and dashing hither and thither in the greatest excitement and glee. Each of the warriors had three fine, spirited horses, which he rode in turn as the fancy moved him. They used buckskin pads, or wooden saddles covered with buffalo, bear, or mountain-goat skin. The bridle was a simple line of buffalo hair tied around the lower jaw of the steed, which yielded implicit obedience to this scanty headgear. At a halt the long end of the line is flung loosely on the ground, and the horse is trained to stand without other fastening.

The whole party were ferried across Snake River by the Indians in their canoes, the animals swimming. Proceeding down the left bank some distance as the trail to Walla Walla ran, it was found that the Nez Perces had wholly vacated that side of the river, and removed with their bands of horses, goods, and lodges, and especially their canoes, to the other side, in order to cut off intercourse with the hostile Indians. The demeanor of the young braves on this march was in marked contrast to the traditional gravity and stoicism of their race. They shouted, laughed, told stories, cracked jokes, and gave free vent to their native gayety and high spirits. Craig, who accompanied the party, translated these good things as they occurred, to the great amusement of the whites. Crossing a wide, flat plain, covered with tall rye grass, he related an anecdote of Lawyer, with the reminiscence of which the young braves seemed particularly tickled. When yet an obscure young warrior, Lawyer was traveling over this ground with a party of the tribe, including several of the principal chiefs. It was a cold winter day, and a biting gale swept up the river, penetrating their clothing and chilling them to the bone. The chiefs sat down in the shelter of the tall rye grass, and were indulging in a cosy smoke, when Lawyer fired the prairie far to windward, and in an instant the fiery element, in a long, crackling, blazing line, came sweeping down on the wings of the wind upon the comfort-taking chiefs, and drove them to rush helter-skelter into the river for safety, dropping robes, pipes, and everything that might impede their flight. For this audacious prank Lawyer barely escaped a public whipping.

At the governor’s request, the Indians undertook to guard the horses while the whites guarded the camp at night, and as the country was still infested with bands of hostiles, who had burned off nearly all the grass, and the animals were with difficulty prevented from straying far and wide in search of feed, it will be readily seen that they had chosen the more arduous task. Every evening, as the young men would linger around the camp-fires, reluctant to start out upon the cold and dreary night work, one or more of the chiefs would exhort them to their duty, bemoan the degeneracy of the present race, and relate instances of the superior bravery and fortitude of young men in former times. The young fellows were not slow to retort to these harangues with many a sarcastic gibe and jest, but finally they would go forth to spend the cold winter night upon the exposed prairie on horseback, posted around the band of animals. So faithfully did they perform this duty that not one was lost during the march.

It was a gala day for the Nez Perces when the party reached the valley, and were received by the Oregon volunteers with a military parade and a salute of musketry; and when Governor Stevens dismissed them with presents and thanks and words of encouragement, they returned home the most devoted and enthusiastic auxiliaries that ever marched in behalf of the whites.

On this march the Nez Perce escort captured a strange Indian on Al-pa-wha Creek, who proved to be the son of Ume-how-lish, the war chief of the Cuyuses, and who said that the chief, with one follower and a number of women, was in hiding farther up the creek, having fled from the valley the last day of the recent fight. The governor sent the young man to his father with the summons to surrender himself a prisoner. The next day Ume-how-lish delivered himself up, saying that he had done nothing bad, and was not afraid to be tried by the white man’s law, and thereafter traveled along with the party to his uncertain fate with true Indian stoicism. He accompanied the governor to the Dalles, where he was turned over to the Oregon authorities. He was afterwards released by Colonel Wright. There was no evidence that he had taken part in the murder of settlers, although he had undoubtedly fought in the recent battle.

The valley was reached on the 20th. Major Chinn, commanding the volunteers, and other officers rode out to meet the governor, and, on reaching the volunteer camp, the troops, four hundred in number, paraded, and fired a volley in salute as the picturesque column marched past, the fifty sturdy, travel-stained whites in advance, followed by the hundred proud and flaunting braves, curveting their horses and uttering their war-whoops. The volunteers then formed in hollow square, and the governor addressed them in a brief speech, complimenting them on their energy in pushing forward at that inclement season, and gallantry in engaging and routing a superior force of the enemy, and tendering the thanks of his party for opening the road. He seized the occasion also to dwell upon the advantages—the necessity—of a winter campaign to bring the war to a speedy end. The governor was the first to grasp this idea of a winter campaign as the most effective method of reducing hostile Indians to subjection. As will be seen hereafter, he urged this course upon General Wool and the military authorities, but only to have his views denounced and ridiculed as “impracticable;” but finally, under the stern lessons of experience, they had to be adopted. It was only by winter campaigns that General Crook succeeded in subduing the Snakes of Idaho and eastern Oregon in 1868–69.

Over a hundred of the Cuyuses and Walla Wallas refused to join their kindred in the war, and remained friendly, including Steachus, Tin-tim-meet-see, and How-lish-wam-poo, and were now encamped on Mill Creek under the protection of a guard, needed unhappily not less against a few of the unruly volunteers, who had already killed some of their cattle, than against apprehended raids by the hostiles. The little flock of Indians under the ministrations of Father Chirouse of the Catholic mission also remained friendly, thanks to the good influence of the Fathers.

Colonel Frank Shaw was found with the volunteers, and from him and the Oregon officers the governor learned the latest news and the condition of affairs. The fight had been a severe one. The Indians resisted stoutly for four days, and only gave way at last because they mistook a large pack-train, seen descending into the valley, for reinforcements to the whites. Pu-pu-mox-mox had been captured, and slain attempting to escape. General Wool had arrived at Vancouver, but had refused to take active measures against the enemy, assuming that the Indians were not at fault, but that the war had been gotten up by white speculators. He had even disbanded two companies of Washington volunteers at Vancouver after they had been actually mustered into the United States service. And a company that had been raised under the direction of Shaw, for the express purpose of going to the assistance of the governor, was dismissed by Wool in spite of the remonstrances of its officers and of Major Rains.

The first act of the governor after grasping the situation was to indite a letter to Wool announcing his safe return, and suggesting the energetic and aggressive military measures by which the outbreak could be speedily quelled.

Some of the fruits of the delay in holding the Blackfoot council, caused by the mulish and incapable Cumming, were now apparent. Had it been held early in August, as it might and should have been, the governor would have gotten back early in September, in time to cope with the first outbreak, to infuse the military authorities with a little of his own sound judgment and energy, to induce harmony and concert of action between the regular and volunteer forces, possibly to remove even Wool’s prejudiced and utterly wrong views, certainly in time to prevent the volunteers of his own territory from being paralyzed in action, and rendered worse than useless. But he was delayed, and in his absence bitter prejudice and divided councils ruled the hour, and the war, which should have been brought to an end in a single season by a few quick, strong blows, was suffered to drag on for years.

After the reception by the volunteers the train moved up the Walla Walla to a point opposite the mission and went into camp, where it remained the next three days. The weather grew intensely cold, the glass ranging 27° below zero; nevertheless, the governor kept the officers at work gathering information concerning trails, crossings of rivers, etc., with a view to military operations, and had a conference with Major Chinn as to pushing against the Indians beyond Snake River; but it appeared that the lack of rations and transportation rendered an advance impracticable, and of course no move could be made while the severe weather continued. On the 24th the camp was moved four miles farther upstream to a more sheltered spot, with plenty of wood, and where there was a deserted house, which the governor and the officers occupied. The cold weather continued unabated for fourteen days. The men had all they could do to keep the fires going and avoid freezing, and many of the horses in the volunteer camp were frozen to death. Although the ground was covered with snow, the animals found grass enough projecting above it, or by pawing it off, to avoid starvation. Herds of cattle, abandoned by the Indians in their flight, grazed within sight of camp, and were driven in and slaughtered as needed, and great flocks of prairie-chickens roosted in the trees about camp, so there was no lack of food.

On the 29th the governor dismissed the Nez Perce escort, who were to return home under Craig as soon as the cold abated, thanking them for their fidelity and services, and charging them to stay on their own side of Snake River, and shun intercourse with the hostiles. The friendly Cuyuse, Steachus, attended this conference, very desirous of joining the Nez Perces and moving into their country, and asking permission to do so. “I am really afraid of those whites, those volunteers,” said he. The Nez Perce chiefs strongly supported him in his request. Said Spotted Eagle: “I am glad to hear those Indians ask to go with us. It looks as if they wished to live and do right when they talk of joining the Nez Perces.” But the governor, after considering the matter for a day, denied the request, for the reason that he feared that the disaffected and hostile kindred of these friendly Cuyuses would be constantly visiting them, and would exert a bad influence upon the Nez Perces, whom he wished to keep entirely aloof from the hostiles.

On the last day of the year, the cold weather continuing with unmitigated severity, the governor decided to hasten below in advance of the train, deeming his presence imperatively required within the settlements on Puget Sound, and issued general orders directing Colonel Doty to move the train to the Dalles as soon as the weather permitted, and there muster out the Stevens Guards and Spokane Invincibles, constituting the Walla Walla Battalion, appointing Craig lieutenant and aide-de-camp, and instructing him as to marching home and disbanding the Nez Perce allies, and taking measures for protecting that tribe against hostile raids or attempts, and assigning Colonel Shaw of the territorial militia to take charge of matters in the valley, organize the settlers and friendly Indians as a military force, to act as their own guards at least, and appointing Sidney S. Ford and Green McCafferty captain and lieutenant of volunteers respectively as his assistants, and finally returning thanks to the battalion

On New Year’s Day, 1856, Governor Stevens started for the Dalles, accompanied only by his son, Pearson, Robie, the Nez Perce chief, Captain John, and the captive Ume-how-lish, and reached that point in three days and a half. The intense cold continued unabated. Every morning the little party saddled in the darkness and started at daylight without breakfast, pushed their horses at a speed of ten miles an hour for about six hours, making about sixty miles, and made camp early in the afternoon, giving the horses several hours to graze before dark, and themselves plenty of time to gather wood, build up a rousing fire, and cook and eat a tremendous meal, breakfast, dinner, and supper in one; then early to bed, sound slumbers, and off again at daylight. All the streams were crossed on the ice until the Des Chutes River was reached. Here was found a great gorge of broken ice twenty feet deep, through the centre of which the rapid and powerful stream had torn its way, a hundred yards wide, bordered by perpendicular walls of ice. Carefully leading their horses over the broken ice masses, they reached the usual fording-place, only to find the dark, swirling river sweeping past twenty feet below them at the foot of this perpendicular and impassable icy cliff, while a similar obstacle stared at them from the other side of the river, and barred exit from the stream even should its passage be accomplished. But, nothing daunted, all set to work with stakes and knives, and at length broke down a barely passable path to the ford. Captain John now led the way across, the water coming to the saddle-skirts; a practicable passage out was found, and all felt much relieved as they again spurred on.

Resting one day at the Dalles, and accompanied only by his son and a guide, the governor continued his journey by the trail down the Oregon side of the Columbia. It was a little-used track, barely passable, or indeed visible, in many places, jammed between the river and the foot of the great mountain masses and precipices which overhang that mighty and sublime gorge. Although the severe cold had abated, considerable snow had fallen, greatly increasing the dangers of the way; but he reached the lower Cascades without mishap, and crossed to the Washington side late in the evening of the second day, spending the intermediate night at Hood River, at the house of Mr. Coe. The next day he continued by land, passing in rear of Cape Horn, and reached a landing on the Columbia, six miles above Vancouver, soon after dark. Here a ship’s long-boat, a stout, staunch craft, with a good sail, was obtained, with a crew of three sturdy fellows. On getting well out in the river away from land, a terrific gale came tearing downstream, struck the boat, and drove her on at great speed. The sail was quickly reefed, but the little craft careened to the gunwale; the waves broke over her; only incessant bailing kept her afloat. The dark night, the tumultuous waves, the howling gale, the open boat tearing along with the helmsman braced against the tiller, the bailer dipping the water overboard with furious haste, and the rest of the party clinging to the upper rail with clenched grasp and tense faces, can never be forgotten by one who witnessed the scene. Vancouver was reached in twenty-six minutes from starting, and all landed with a strong feeling of relief at having escaped a watery grave.

The governor again endeavored to communicate with General Wool, and hastened to Portland to see him, but he had left on the steamer for San Francisco only the day before.

The journey up the Cowlitz in canoe and across the muddy road to Olympia was made in three days, without special incident to vary the monotony of toil and discomfort ever attending it at that season, and on January 19, after an absence of nearly nine months, the governor reached Olympia, and found himself once more at home with his family.

During the governor’s absence Mrs. Stevens, with her little girls and the nurse Ellen, spent several weeks on Whitby Island, at the home of a family named Crockett, in hopes that the stronger sea air of that locality would overcome the Panama fever, from which they were still suffering. The Crocketts were hearty and kindly Kentucky farmer folks of the best type, and received the sick lady and her children with warm-hearted hospitality and kindness. Mrs. Stevens with the children used frequently to bathe in the Sound, and on one occasion, as they were in the water, a band of northern Indians was observed approaching in their great war-canoes at rapid speed. Mr. Crockett hastened to the beach in great apprehension and hurried the bathers to the house, declaring that the predatory savages would be sure to seize and carry them off, if they were given an opportunity. Under the invigorating open-air life on the island and the excellent fare, with abundance of venison and other game, the family rapidly regained health, and after their visit returned in canoes to Olympia.

Mrs. Stevens afterward visited the military post at Steilacoom, and the wives of the officers there visited her in Olympia, and it was at her house that Mrs. Slaughter received news of the death of her husband, Lieutenant W.A. Slaughter, who was killed by the Indians, December 5. Several times, after the war broke out, circumstantial and apparently trustworthy reports were brought of the massacre of the governor and his party by the Indians, all of which Mrs. Stevens utterly disbelieved. She scouted even more decidedly the idea that he would return by way of the Missouri and Isthmus of Panama, which his friends were so strongly urging him to do, and declared to them that he would certainly come back by the direct route, no matter what obstacles might intervene.

CHAPTER XXXVII
PROSTRATION.—THE RESCUE

When Governor Stevens, after his midwinter forced march across the mountains, reached Olympia, he found the whole country utterly prostrated, overwhelmed. The settlers in dismay had abandoned their farms and fled for refuge to the few small villages. They were all poor, having no reserves of money, food, or supplies, and starvation stared them in the face if prevented from planting and raising a crop. The only military post on Puget Sound, Fort Steilacoom, could muster less than a hundred soldiers, and was so far from protecting the settlers that it had called for and received the reinforcement of a company of volunteers for its own protection. The post at Vancouver was also but a handful in strength, and had also been reinforced by two companies of volunteers. But even this pitiful force was not to be used against the savage enemy; for Wool had just gone back to San Francisco after a flying visit to the Columbia River, during which he had disbanded the volunteer companies, refused to take any active measures to protect the people, and loudly proclaimed, both in official reports and through the press, that the war had been forced upon the Indians by the greed and brutality of the whites, and that the former would be peaceful if only let alone and not treated with injustice.

There was a deficiency of arms, and still more of ammunition, in the country. Six weeks were required to send a letter to Washington City, and three months before an answer to the most urgent demand or entreaty could be received. It was no wonder that the pioneers were universally discouraged, and that nothing kept many of them from abandoning the country but their absolute inability to get away.[10]

A brief review of the outbreak and course of the war will make clearer the situation at this juncture.

Scarcely was the ink dry upon his signature to the Walla Walla treaty, when Kam-i-ah-kan, the leading and most potent spirit, and his Yakimas were hard at work inciting an outbreak against the whites. They with the Cuyuse and Walla Walla chiefs assembled the disaffected Indians, and many of the others, at a council north of Snake River in the summer, and made every effort to gain over the Spokanes, Cœur d’Alenes, and even some of the Nez Perces, who had intermarried with the Cuyuses, and not without success among the young braves. Their emissaries stirred up the tribes on the eastern shore of the Sound, too, the Nisquallies, Puyallups, and Duwhamish, who had intermarried to some extent with the Yakimas, and penetrated even to Gray’s Harbor and Shoalwater Bay on the coast, and to southern Oregon. Every falsehood that Indian ingenuity could invent, or credulity swallow, was employed to fire the Indian heart. The conspiracy was in full train, but not yet ripe, when the outbreak was prematurely begun by the murder of the miners in the Yakima valley in September, by Kam-i-ah-kan’s warriors, who could no longer be held back; and when agent Bolon visited the tribe to investigate the matter, he was treacherously shot in the back, seized and his throat cut, and with his horse burned to ashes, September 23. Qualchen, the son of Ou-hi and nephew of Kam-i-ah-kan, was the chief actor in this tragedy. Major Haller marched with a hundred men from the Dalles into the Yakima valley to demand the surrender of or to punish the murderers; and Lieutenant W.A. Slaughter, with a small force of forty men, moved from Steilacoom across the Nahchess Pass to the Yakima to coöperate with Haller. But the Yakimas attacked the latter October 6, and compelled him to retreat with the loss of twenty-two killed and wounded, his howitzer, and baggage. Pu-pu-mox-mox then seized and plundered old Fort Walla Walla, which had no garrison, and distributed the goods found there, including a considerable supply of Indian goods, among his followers, who danced the war-dance in front of his lodge around a fresh white scalp. These Indians, with the Cuyuses and Umatillas, then drove the settlers out of the Walla Walla valley, destroyed their houses and improvements, and killed or ran off the stock. Lieutenant Slaughter, after crossing the summit of the Cascades, being unable to learn anything of Haller, hastily but wisely fell back to the western side. Here Captain M. Maloney joined him with seventy regulars and a company of volunteers, under Captain Gilmore Hays, and again advanced across the mountains, but in turn retreated, fearing to leave the settlements on Puget Sound wholly unprotected; but his messengers were waylaid and slain by the Sound Indians, and the settlers on White or Duwhamish River, near Seattle, were massacred with unspeakable atrocity, the bodies of the women and children being thrown into the wells. These settlers had taken refuge in Seattle, but were induced to go back to their farms by the friendly professions and assurances of the very savages who fell upon and butchered them the night after their return. And settlers on the Nisqually and at other points met a similar fate.

At Major Rains’s request, Acting-Governor Mason called out two companies of volunteers, which were mustered into the United States service, one being used to reinforce Fort Steilacoom, and one the Vancouver post. A company was also raised at Vancouver for the express purpose of going to the assistance of Governor Stevens, in case he attempted to force his way through the hostiles.

In November an engagement took place on White River, in which some loss was inflicted upon the Indians, but they soon reappeared in undiminished strength, surrounded the troops at night, and captured a number of baggage animals, and on December 5 killed Lieutenant Slaughter and two men, and wounded six others. Several more companies of volunteers were raised for home defense, and efforts were made to separate the friendly Indians from the hostiles. Acting-Governor Mason did all that was possible to meet the crisis, and he was ably seconded by Major Tilton, whom he appointed adjutant-general, and by Colonel Simmons, but the storm was too great for their efforts. Moreover, they depended upon the regular officers to conduct the war, which made Wool’s action doubly paralyzing.

The whole region about the Sound, with the exception of the prairies scattered about the head of it, was covered with the primeval evergreen forest and a dense and tangled undergrowth, so thick and matted, and obstructed by immense fallen giants and downfalls of every kind, that the most energetic hunter or woodsman could traverse through it only five or six miles a day. There were also numerous river-bottoms and swamps, even more impenetrable. Only seventy miles back to the eastward stretched north and south the great Cascade Range, affording innumerable safe and hidden retreats; and many trails across it, well known to the Indians, but unknown to the whites, gave access to the Yakima emissaries and reinforcements to join the hostiles on the Sound, and furnished the latter the ready means of retreat to the Yakima country when hard pressed. In the dense forests and swamps the savages lurked at the very doors of the settlements, and no man ventured out, for fear of ambush by the wily and omnipresent foe.

After Haller’s defeat Major G.J. Rains led an expedition from the Dalles to the Yakima valley with three hundred and fifty regulars and two companies of Washington volunteers, under Captains William Strong and Robert Newell, and was supported by four companies of Oregon volunteers, under Colonel J.W. Nesmith. He reached the Catholic mission on the Ah-tah-nam branch of the Yakima, which was found deserted, and destroyed it, and then returned to the Dalles, having accomplished nothing except the breaking down of his animals. The Yakimas, avoiding battle with so large a force, managed to run off fifty-four of his mules and horses, and immediately their young braves rode post-haste to the neighboring tribes, proclaiming victory over the troops, and proudly showing the captured animals with the United States brand on their shoulders in proof of their success.

Another force of about five hundred Oregon volunteers, under Colonel James K. Kelly, marched to the Walla Walla valley and defeated the hostiles there congregated, which opened the road to Governor Stevens, as already related. But the Indians, although punished, simply fled across Snake River, and were free to continue their efforts to stir up the friendly tribes, for the volunteers, from lack of supplies and transportation, were unable to pursue them.

The Oregon volunteers were not mustered into the United States service, because both they and Governor Curry were anxious to strike the Indians, and justly feared that if placed under the orders of regular officers, they would be held back or placed in garrison.

In December General Wool came up from San Francisco to Vancouver, mustered out the Washington volunteers, placed the regulars at the Dalles, Vancouver, and Steilacoom strictly on the defensive, and denounced in unmeasured terms the brave Oregon volunteers, who had struck the only real blow inflicted upon the enemy. He disbanded even the company specially raised for Governor Stevens’s relief, notwithstanding the remonstrances of its captain, of Major Rains, and of his own aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Richard Arnold.

Thus, at the beginning of the year 1856, the Indians of the upper country held the whole region, except the point occupied in the Walla Walla valley by the Oregon volunteers; the Yakimas were more hostile, active, and triumphant than ever; the Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas were made more embittered and defiant by the punishment they had received; and all were free to instigate more hostility among the other tribes, which they were industriously doing. The regulars were on the defensive by Wool’s orders, while the volunteers in the valley were unable to take the aggressive for lack of supplies.

West of the Cascades the Indians infested and held the whole country except a few points. The whites were virtually in a state of siege, deserted and maligned by a veteran officer, whose duty it was to protect them; not knowing where to find succor, or even food, completely discouraged and dismayed. The great majority of Indians on the Sound had not yet taken to the war-path, although much disaffected. Even among the most hostile, the Nisquallies, Puyallups, and Duwhamish, it is doubtful if a majority of any tribe took active part in the outbreak; but the war faction comprised the chiefs and the vigorous young warriors, and they were constantly stimulated and encouraged, and at times largely reinforced, by their Yakima kinsmen. The hostile warriors on the Sound probably varied in numbers from two hundred and fifty to five hundred, but the swamps and forests, with their knowledge of the country, gave them every advantage. The great danger was that the other Indians, already disaffected, and many of whose restless young braves were aiding the hostiles to an extent which cannot be certainly determined, would openly join in the outbreak, and this danger was aggravated by every day’s delay on the part of the whites in attacking and striking the enemy. A defensive policy was sure to throw the whole Indian population into the arms of the hostiles. An additional and imminent danger was found in the northern Indians, gangs of whom were prowling about the Sound, ever ripe for murder and plunder.

The first day after his arrival Governor Stevens delivered in person and orally a special message to the legislature, then in session. He pointed out how the Donation Act and the advent of settlers had made it absolutely necessary to treat with the Indian tribes and extinguish their title to the soil. He showed how this had been accomplished by the treaties he had made, and described the care taken to deal with the Indians justly and understandingly, especially at the Walla Walla council:—