CHAPTER XXVII.

ADVENTURES AMONG THE BANNOCKS -- A MIDNIGHT WAR DANCE AND ITS SEQUENCE.

The Bannocks -- Their Good Mounts and Equipment -- A Shocking Incident -- My Bannock Scouts -- Mysterious Disappearance of Twenty Horses -- How I Made the Indians Recover Them – A Distrusted Chief -- An Exciting Midnight Scene -- War-Dance of the Bannocks -- An Uneasy Night in Camp -- Demanding Permission to Kill Three of My Scouts -- Getting the Best of the Bannocks -- Execution of an Indian -- Surrounding the Indians -- Fair Promises but Hollow Hearts -- Plans for Revenge -- An Old Indian Legend -- Looking Forward to a Resurrection.

            DURING my Nez Perce campaign the Bannocks were mostly confined upon the great reserve in eastern Idaho, usually called the Fort Hall reservation. At that time it is said that there were not to exceed five hundred of these people who came under the charge of a government agency. In 1877 about a score of them accompanied the troops for the entire campaign from Idaho to the Missouri River. The men were fairly good-looking, had good blankets, and their mounts were in prime condition and well equipped with good saddles and bridles.

            It was difficult at times to restrain them from what white men call criminal acts and insubordinate conduct. Once the Bannock scouts came suddenly upon one of Joseph's abandoned camps. Finding in it an old woman too ill to keep up with the hostiles they instantly killed her and took her scalp as a token of victory. Again, on Gibbon's

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battle-field, the dead, including women and children, had been buried close to the water under the bank of a stream. The Bannocks found and disinterred their bodies, robbed them of clothing and ornaments, then pierced and mutilated the naked bodies in a shocking manner, carrying off their scalps. Our men came upon this field too late to prevent the mischief, but they carefully buried the dead again, more deeply than before. The Bannocks acted here just as all wild Indians had been taught to do for a century. For a while Buffalo Horn, their war chief, behaved well and sided with me in my attempts at discipline.

            At the foot of the mountain near Mary Lake forty horses belonging to citizens teams, which were doing the transportation work for us, were turned out to graze. During the night these horses disappeared. The rough and indiscreet language of the Bannock scouts aroused my suspicion that a party of them had taken the horses. I arrested ten and held them as prisoners. Their leader, Rainé, a half-breed, was surly and disrespectful. I had them all disarmed, their horses and rifles taken from them, and sent them as prisoners to the guard tent. The brave scout Fisher, who had come to help us in controlling the Bannocks, was on the front scouting line, almost deserted, for the Bannock scouts had found something to do besides hunt other Indian trails. Soon an old Bannock chief came and begged of me to release the prisoners, earnestly assuring me of their innocence.

            I answered: " What you say may be true, but Indians are good to hunt horses. They follow

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blind trails better than white men. Send some of your young men and bring back the lost horses. When they do that, let me know."

            " Yes, Indians good to hunt horses," said the old man, " I will send them."

            In a few hours twenty of the horses came galloping into camp, chased by the young Indians. Again the old man came to me and declared that twenty were all they could possibly find.

            I said : " All right, I shall not let the prisoners go until I see the other twenty horses."

            The old chief gave a grunt of dissatisfaction and a shrug of his shoulders when he left me. This time he went himself with the searching party. That night the remaining twenty horses overtook us, and all the prisoners were released except Rainé, whom I could not trust. He, at least, understood that horse stealing was a crime to be punished.

            One night we had an exciting scene in which Rainé figured. It occurred in a beautiful glade near the head waters of the Snake River. The Bannocks had their tepees on a slight knoll not far from my bivouac and near the water. Buffalo Horn asked permission to have a war dance, and I consented. The unearthly din of their wild wailing and singing, the weird shapes of the dancing Indians silhouetted against the blazing camp fires, and the sense of actual danger seemed to impress my whole command with a feeling akin to awe. Elsewhere there was an unusual stir of preparation to start our march by two o clock in the morning. The neighing of the horses and the braying

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of the mules sounded ten times louder than usual. It was a night to be remembered. At midnight, after the war dance and a brief council, Buffalo Horn and Rainé came to my headquarters and demanded authority to kill my three Nez Perce scouts, " Captain John," " Old George," and one other comrade of the tribe. Rainé insisted that they were traitors, that they had rejoiced at Joseph's success in the late Camas Meadow fight, and at his surprising and stampeding our mules. He asserted that Old George, in particular, ought to die.

            I made George face his accusers. He was so frank and evidently honest that I did not for a moment distrust him, and Buffalo Horn was denied the small favor he had asked. He was very angry at the time and never quite forgave me for the refusal. The third Indian may have been the one that cut the strap of the bell mare and produced confusion in the herd of mules. At any rate he was so terrified at the talk of the Bannocks that he escaped that night into the forest and I never saw him again.

            All of the Bannock scouts left me after the last battle near the Rockies and returned to their agency. Buffalo Horn, puffed up with pride and self-confidence, hoped in the future to do better than Joseph and his warriors. So he fomented the causes of dissatisfaction in and around Fort Hall, and stimulated the Indians to seek revenge for real and fancied wrongs.

            After the Bannocks had been given a reservation, as far back as 1869, it was determined by the

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Indian department to put all roaming Indians in that neighborhood upon the same reservation. As long as the Bannocks were the most numerous there was very little trouble. They had thousands of ponies and were nomadic themselves, and were really under but little restraint. They simply came to the reservation for their annuity goods and departed at will. But little by little the roaming Indians, mostly Shoshones, came upon the same reservation to stay ; goods, subsistence, and clothing intended for the Bannocks were issued to the Shoshones, as they were always near at hand and docile, and before long they outnumbered the Bannocks two to one. This was the main cause of the restlessness and bitter complaints of the Bannocks. They not only hated, but robbed the more industrious and more favored Shoshones.

            There was an immense stretch of camas meadows between the great Fort Hall reservation and Boise, Idaho. The Bannocks insisted on this as their own special province, and regarded the white settlers generally as their enemies. In August, 1877, the positive work of revenge began. A Bannock near Fort Hall killed two white teamsters. Next the authorities, with a view to punishing the guilty, began to look into the matter. The Indian agent sent his interpreter to the Bannocks with an order for them to come in to his office and bring with them Petope, who w r as believed to have slain the teamsters. The Indians appeared to obey. They brought the suspected man and delivered him to the marshal, who conveyed him to prison at Malad City to await trial. But the Indians were

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feigning. They despised the white man's justice. They believed they were merely squaring old scores when they, through Petope, had killed the two teamsters.

            Within an hour after the marshal had gone the suppressed wrath of the Indians began to show itself. Alexander Rhodan, a young government employee, was killed by Nam-pe-yo-go, and other mischief was done. Captain Bainbridge, the commander of Fort Hall, was quickly on hand with a detachment of troops. He demanded the murderer of Rhodan at the hands of the Shoshones and the Bannocks. The former replied that if a Shoshone had committed the crime they would have arrested the criminal at once, but that this arrest now belonged to the Bannocks.

            The Bannocks feigned acquiescence and started off as if to make the arrest of the guilty Indian, but when night came the pursuers returned without Nam-pe-yo-go. They said he had escaped to join his father and brothers far beyond the Snake River.

            It was plain enough that the Bannocks were hostile. They had armed themselves well and supplied their band with tough ponies, possessing great endurance, and well trained for actual use. But Nam-pe-yo-go did not escape. White men in the vicinity found him, and he was tried, condemned, and executed with extraordinary dispatch.

            General John E. Smith, who commanded one of my divisions in the Army of the Tennessee, was a thorough soldier, stationed at Fort Douglas. He

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had charge of that district. At dawn on the 16th of January, 1878, his troops surrounded two Bannock villages which were evidently preparing for conflict. Though the Indians were armed, both villages were surprised and captured, and upwards of fifty warriors and three hundred ponies were escorted to the agency. The father and two brothers of Nam-pe-yo-go were sent to the garrison for detention. The remainder, after General Smith had given them good counsel, were allowed their liberty, but their ponies and their rifles were kept for them. Again the Bannocks feigned acquiescence, but at heart were angry enough and vexed at the loss of their mounts and weapons. They had all-night talks among themselves and were constantly hatching plans for revenge.

            As soon as spring had produced abundant grass for animals the Bannocks one dark night fled from the reservation. Many of them had put in their crops, but even these were abandoned to their Shoshone rivals.

            These wild Bannock warriors shrewdly and secretly negotiated with other and even distant tribes of Indians. They took advantage of a discontent which they found quite extensive in the Department of the Columbia, and sent delegates to the malcontents. The Pi-Utes gave them the most abundant sympathy and aid, and were their first allies.

            There is a strange story, a very old Indian legend, told by Sarah Winnemucca, daughter of the Pi-Ute chief Winnemucca, to the effect that there was a set of cannibals who occupied the

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Humboldt River country at the time the Pi-Utes were living by Mud Lake in Nevada. The cannibals laid ambuscades for the Pi-Utes and other more civilized Indians, and killed and ate them. Of course this provoked wars, in which the cannibals were as fierce and reckless as were the followers of the Mahdi. Sarah's ancestors at last made effective war upon them, killed large numbers, and drove the remnant into the thick forest north of Humboldt Lake. They then set fire to the forest, but the cannibals rushed from the flames to their bulrush boats and succeeded in making a landing on the eastern border of the lake, and sought refuge in a large cave not far off. The Pi-Utes followed them and set a watch at the mouth of the cave.

            As it took too long to starve them out the Pi-Utes began to pile up wood at the entrance to the cave, while the cannibals withdrew farther and farther within it. Then suddenly the Pi-Utes set fire to the wood and made an oven of the cave, and the last remnant of this ferocious tribe was destroyed. Such is the legend.

            There was something remarkable about the Pi-Utes. When the white men began to cross their country they enjoyed being at peace with them, but little by little their extensive possessions were diminished as the white settlements increased. The lakes from which they took fish in abundance were claimed by frontier occupants of the good land, and their hunting grounds were circumscribed and at last taken from them. One writer says of them: " They are quite harmless and sub-

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sist upon fish, game, roots, and the like. They show some disposition to be industrious. " The same article calls them " a tribe of degraded Indians of the Shoshone stock." Neither description is fair.

            I may say of them that, as a rule, they have shown a love of peace and exhibited good qualities. Both men and women have been willing to work and often made great progress in imitating their civilized neighbors. Under advisement they opened an acequia (irrigating ditch) near the railroad on the Pyramid Lake reservation and by hard labor extended it a mile. They had a flume and power to propel a saw and gristmill, which had been promised them by the agents of the government, but the saw and gristmill never came, and the lumber for houses was never sent. The acequia became lost to them and is now used by Anglo-Saxons for purposes of irrigation.

            Again, in 1865 a cry arose among the white settlers around Harney Lake that the Indians had stolen some of their cattle. That might have been true, but the Pi-Utes were not the Indians engaged in the theft. Chief Winnemucca s tribe was at that time far away in Nevada. Many were at Mud Lake fishing. A detachment of soldiers were sent over there from Camp Harney to answer the settlers' cry. They came suddenly upon these peaceful Indians in Nevada, fired straight into their camp and killed old men, women, and children. Chief Winnemucca and his young men were, fortunately for the future of the tribe, away on a hunting expedition.

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            After this terrible catastrophe, whoever was to be blamed, it is not at all strange that the Pi-Utes became apprehensive and suspicious. They were indeed ignorant and full of superstition, so that when some to oat arose and made predictions many were ready to listen. A favorite idea, similar to the " Messiah craze," carried by these Dreamers from tribe to tribe all through the Northwest country, was that there would soon be a resurrection of Indians. All the whites were to be killed, and the Indians' wrongs would then be righted.

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXVIII.

PREPARATIONS FOR ANOTHER CAMPAIGN -- OPENING OF THE PI-UTE AND BANNOCK WAR.

The Noted Pi-Ute Chief Egan -- An Indian Princess and Her Interesting History -- An Anxious Night in Camp -- Some Wakeful Hours --  Fresh Troubles with the Bannocks -- The Discontented Pi-Utes --  The Promised Resurrection of Indians -- Anticipating an Outbreak -- The Lava Beds of the Modocs -- A Desolate and Sterile Region --  An Ideal Place for Ambush -- Preparations for Another Campaign -- Constant Murders and Outrages -- Weakening an Indian's Courage -- Terrified and Fleeing Settlers -- The Wary Chief Buffalo Horn -- " Pi-Ute Joe " -- An Indian Woman s Loyal Service.

            AFTER the close of several conflicts inaugurated by a massacre in one of Chief Winnemucca s tribes in Nevada, another band of Pi-Utes, led by an able chief, Egan, was brought upon a fairly good reserve of public land not far from Harney Lake. It was named " The Malheur Reservation." It was here, in the summer of 1876, while on a tour of inspection, that I first met the Pi-Utes. At that time they had a favorite agent, Mr. Sam Parish ; and Sarah Winnemucca, sometimes called the Indian Princess, daughter of the Pi-Ute chief Winnemucca, was their interpreter. I had long before heard something of her history. She spoke English perfectly, was very neat and tidy in her dress, and at that time maintained an air of great self-respect.

            During the night, as I had no guard or escort, and in fact nobody with me except my aide-de camp, Captain Sladen, and my daughter Grace,

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who had then recently returned to our home at Portland, Oregon, from Vassar College, and was accompanying me on this tour, I felt no little anxiety about the situation. This anxiety was increased when the Indians assembled and held a council, accompanied with singing, beating of tom toms, and dancing through the whole night, so that I spent many wakeful hours. However, they appeared to be contented with their agent at that time, and the tooat was not predicting an immediate resurrection.

            Soon after this a new agent, a Mr. Rhinehart, was sent to the " Malheur " by the Indian bureau. The Indians were intensely opposed to the change, for they loved Mr. and Mrs. Parish and had begged for their retention. Rhinehart was a political appointee. In giving the causes of the trouble that followed, he said that the Bannocks had been there as delegates some time before; that they were particularly angry because some of their horses had been taken from them, and because of a story spread among them that all Indian horses and ponies were to be seized and given to the soldiers. Sarah Winnemucca gave an account of this affair. She said: "Some Indians of Bannock Jack's band had got drunk and shot two white men. One of these Indians had a sister who, with other women, was digging some roots, and these white men had caught this poor girl and abused her. The other women had run away and left her to the mercy of these brutes, and it was on her account that her brother and others had shot them. " That was the Indians' version.

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            It was while these Pi-Utes were in a state of unrest and extreme discontent that the Bannock messengers had come among them. The outbreak seemed so extensive that the old tooats suddenly had a new inspiration to the effect that the time was at hand for the great, long-promised resurrection of Indians. This news was carried from tribe to tribe. With some reluctance the great majority of the Pi-Utes decided to join the Bannocks and other discontented spirits and make common cause with them, because surely, if combined, they could defeat all the white troops and destroy all the troublesome white people in that part of the North west.

            I will now develop the campaign of 1878 which followed ; it was my last active one in the field : I very early learned, by corresponding with various Indian agencies, that Indians who were friendly were cooperating and giving unmistakable signs of danger at hand. These statements were made by white men who were living in the vicinity of the plotting warriors, and were often exaggerated. I was anticipating an outbreak, expecting it from the Columbia renegades who had escaped from their reservation and were causing a constant ferment among the scattered white settlements. The declared policy of the Indian department, which was to put every one of them on some reservation, was everywhere resisted. The Indians were evidently waiting for me to send troops against them, which would give them a pretext for carrying out their war policy. Then they would strike, beginning, as usual, to kill white settlers. 

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            The stockmen who pastured their horses and cattle upon the public domain made at this time unending complaints against the Indians; their stallions were found among the Indian herds, some of their cattle and horses were lost, and so on. In the fullness of time a terrible war began, but not on the Columbia, where I had predicted it would occur.

            On June 2d, my commander at Boise said: " Bannock Indians have been making serious threats and ordering settlers off Big Camas Prairie. A man from there this evening reports two settlers shot by Indians this morning, both wounded, ninety miles to where Indians are camped between Big Camas and Snake River in the Lava Beds. Number of hostiles two hundred, well armed and supplied with ammunition; settlers counted sixty lodges, and twenty more with Buffalo Horn who has just joined them."

            At this time there was a daily stage line running from Fort Hall to Boise. It will be remembered that previous to this time the Modocs had chosen the Lava Beds for the scene of General Canby s massacre, and Joseph, in 1877, had found the place favorable to his boldest plan. So, doubtless, Buffalo Horn, following suit, had placed his lodges among the Lava Beds to favor his campaign already begun. It was a desolate and sterile region, the "beds" being simply knolls of igneous rocks, upon which debris and drift had gradually formed a soddy loam, and the surface was grown over with briers and bushes. The knolls were scattered here and there without regularity, alternat-

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ing with spaces of prairie grass land. There is such sameness of surface that it is difficult to find one s way, and people are lost easier than in the forests. Still, the region is well adapted for Indian tactics in war time, because all trails disappear, and the knolls are favorable to ambush, where Indians may lie perfectly concealed until their enemy is within good range of their rifles.

            On the last day of May, 1878, I sat in my house at Portland, Oregon, amid my family, when telegrams came pouring in saying in substance: "An Indian war is upon us ; come, we entreat you ; come to our help ! I said to my wife : " Is it possible that we must go through another such ordeal as that of last year? " I referred to the Nez Perce war.

            A soldier s self -conflict is not much prolonged. A moment later the proper spirit of decision came, and within an hour the troops of my department at the various posts, hundreds of miles apart, were holding themselves in readiness to go by water, by rail, or by marching, toward the scene of strife.

            The governor of Idaho sent this dispatch the 2d of June: " The right to Big Camas Prairie evidently the cause. Sheriff Hays informs me that one hundred and fifty Indians are in Jordan Valley; King Hill Station, overland (stage) road, raided; horses carried off."

            Captain Reuben F. Bernard, a soldier of experience and ability, with his troop of fifty cavalry men, was the first to reach the prairie. He found two herders wounded. They were shot while in their tent by two Indians without apparent cause

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or provocation. The Indians then robbed the place of everything valuable and drove off thirty horses. There were signs that many warriors had combined for murder and plunder.

            When Bernard had gone a little farther he discovered that the Indians had abandoned their camps and fled, evidently not being quite ready to meet his troop. A surprise is apt to weaken an Indian's courage even more than that of a white man. Captain Bernard now pressed on to the eastern portion of Big Camas Prairie and came into the lava country, where he deemed it too dangerous to operate with a single cavalry troop. He turned to the stage road. At King Hill Station ten more horses had been stolen by the Indians. After this theft, the Bannocks for some reason abandoned the Lava Beds and crossed over the Snake River southward at Glen's Ferry, where they robbed a store and house, turned the ferryboats loose, took everything they could carry off from some freight wagons, and stole all the horses in the region far and near, in stable or pasture, which they could find. Farmers, terrified by the first rumors, had quickly abandoned their homes, and fled to the larger settlements, where they set up defensive barricades. Our soldiers found the body of a stranger who had been killed and thrown into the river ; several well-known persons, then away from home, never returned.

            A few Pi-Ute and Columbia River Indians were present with the Bannocks before the first blow was struck ; the Lemhi agency supplied some, and a few came from elsewhere. An offensive league

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had been formed among these Indians, and the agreement was to move in such a way as to get the most plunder possible, gradually passing from tribe to tribe in a large circuit, and by working westward they hoped to increase their forces, like a snowball that increases in size as it rolls. They especially needed to increase their supply of horses. By carrying out this plan the Indian force would soon be so large that it could cope with all my troops. Such was the Indian hope and expectation.

            Bernard wrote me : " This is the strongest outbreak I have ever known. They give no reasons of any kind for their actions, except the Bannocks, who make objections to white men coming on Big Camas Prairie with stock."

            All our Indian friends in the East wanted us to have " talks " and try to settle difficulties without war. But I knew from experience that whenever our officers had in the past attempted to parley after hostilities had once begun, and they had often tried it, the attempt had never been successful. Indians laughed at such efforts and attributed them to weakness. I believed it was too late to attempt a council. There were many valleys leading to that of the crooked Snake River, and the Indians sped on from one of these valleys to another, killing and destroying as they went.

            Captain Patrick Collins of the Twenty-first Infantry, mounting his small company at Boise, succeeded in joining Bernard near a big bend of the Snake River. On the way he found Bruneau Valley fortified. One man had been killed; cattle, horses, and mules had been stolen and driven off.

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            On the 5th of June, Collins joined Bernard, turned over his force to him, and returned to Fort Boise. Bernard, thus strengthened, crossed the broad and swift current of the Snake River, took the trail of the raiders, and by marching most of the night reached a spot in the morning where the white settlers had assembled and protected themselves by a unique fort, a sort of stockade. He escorted these settlers to a larger and safer settlement.

            In addition to Collins company Bernard had gathered some citizen scouts, mounted upon fresh horses, and placed them under an experienced frontiersman by the name of Bobbins. Bernard instructed them to push ahead in pursuit, ascertain where the Indians were, and let him know. By the 8th of June the scouts had succeeded in locating the hostiles bivouac not far from Battle Creek.

            As Bernard thus watched the Indians and protected the citizens, Buffalo Horn became very wary and endeavored to avoid battle with him. But that very day, in the afternoon, a small company of volunteers hurried up from another direction, coming from Silver City toward Battle Creek. They succeeded in heading off Buffalo Horn, who had with him at the time about sixty Bannocks. The women and children had taken another route. The place was seven miles from a small village called South Mountain. The Indians at once attacked the volunteers with fury, killed four white men and two friendly Pi-Utes, and wounded another.

            Pi-Ute Joe, a scout who went out with the volunteers, gave an account of this engagement which was slightly different from theirs. He said that the

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two Pi-Utes who were killed were guides conducting the volunteers to South Mountain, where they proposed to annihilate the Bannocks, and that the volunteers ran off at the first fire, leaving behind the poor old schoolmaster of Silver City, who had joined them. He had been badly wounded by the savages, and being angered by their desertion he cursed his retreating friends while he was bleeding to death. Pi-Ute Joe further stated that he himself had killed Buffalo Horn; that the fall of their leader had checked the Indians so that he, having a swift horse, succeeded in escaping.

            I was not able thoroughly to verify the story about the volunteers, but Buffalo Horn did fall in that skirmish at South Mountain, and after his death the hostiles pushed on as fast as they could with a view of joining the Malheur Pi-Utes at the Juniper or Stein's Mountains.

            Sarah Winnemucca left the agency when her friend Sam Parish ceased to be agent. At the time of the Bannock outbreak a man by the name of Morton had hired Sarah to drive him and his daughter in her wagon from the John Day Valley in Oregon to Silver City, Idaho. She was making that journey when, on the 11th of June, she met some volunteers and Pi-Ute Joe at Fort Lyon, an old abandoned army post, then a station on the stage line. The next day, with Pi-Ute Joe, she went on to another station called Sheep Ranch. I arrived at Boise that day and received Bernard s report. The Indians had gone toward the Juniper Mountains. They had captured the stage bringing military supplies from the railroad, seized two

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boxes of Winchester rifles and much ammunition, and had besides their mounts four hundred horses in a herd. This band numbered sixty warriors. He added to his report: " Sarah Winnemucca is in my camp ; she wants to go to her people with any message you or General McDowell might desire to send ; thinks if she can get to the Pi-Utes with such message she could get all the well-disposed to come near the troops, where they could be safe and fed ; says there is nothing at the Malheur agency with which to feed them."

            I answered: " Send Sarah with two or three friendly Indians straight to her people, and have them send a few of their principal men to you. I will see that all who behave well and come in are properly fed. Promise Sarah a reward if she succeeds. "

            Sarah, on horseback, with two friendly Pi-Utes, immediately set out from Sheep Ranch in the direction of Stein s Mountains, a distance of over one hundred miles through the roughest part of Idaho.

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXIX.

IN ACTIVE FIELD SERVICE AGAIN -- SARAH WINNEMUCCA' S REMARKABLE RIDE -- NEARING THE INDIAN STRONGHOLD.

Planning the Campaign -- Active Field Service -- Sarah Winnemucca's Ride -- The Story She Brought -- Fresh From the Hostile Camp -- Incidents of Sarah's Remarkable Journey -- Scenes Along a Bloody Trail -- "Who Are You?" -- Climbing Steep and Rocky Mountains on Hands and Knees -- " Oh, Sarah, You Have Come to Save Us ! " -- An Old Indian Chief s Advice -- Escaping from the Hostile Camp -- Followed by the Bannocks -- Some Brave Women and their Escort -- A Strong Force of Indian Warriors.

            IN suppressing Indian outbreaks a commander is apt to be impatient; he chafes at exaggerated and sometimes conflicting reports as they pour in from every quarter. But the experience of the Custer massacre and of the Nez Perce war had taught me never to send out, if I could possibly avoid it, an inadequate force against Indians after they had had time to get ready.

            As the troops were hastening forward, a frontier garrison at Camp Harney dispatched McGregor s troop of cavalry and Downey's company of infantry. With many misgivings they left but a small guard at Harney to protect their women and children. At the same time, and from all directions, other detachments were hurrying to the scenes of disturbance by water and by overland roads from California.

            Now, to follow my own course, the reader will find me on the 9th of June consulting with Colonel

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Frank Wheaton and Colonel Cuvier Grover at Walla Walla. Wheaton had come from Lapwai to meet me, and Grover had been in command at Walla Walla. I ordered the latter at once to Boise to take charge of everything in that vicinity and keep me informed of important matters by telegraph. Wheaton was to take up his station at Walla Walla and guard the home district with small reserves, while the rest of us were endeavoring by active field service to arrest the depredators in Idaho and southern Oregon. I promised to speedily beat them in battle or take them as captives.

            Pushing on with my staff officers, Major E. C. Mason and Lieutenants Wilkinson and Wood, I arrived in Boise on the morning of June 12th, just in time, fortunately, to render Sarah Winnemucca s expedition effective.

            A brief dispatch to General McDowell at San Francisco from myself will indicate the plan I had in mind: " Arrived here this morning; sent force under Grover, including Major Sanford with cavalry (coming from Kelton), to clear up scattering Indians, eastward toward Fort Hall. Please ask commanding officer Fort Hall to work toward Grover, to detain the Bannock families reported going to Hall, particularly relatives of those on war-path. I am concentrating other troops against Bannocks and Malheurs at Sheep Ranch, six miles from O-wy-hee Ferry on Winnemucca stage road, taking charge of this column myself."

            At that time companies coming from Walla Walla and farther west, cavalry, artillery, and

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infantry, were marching through stifling clouds of dust along the Baker wagon road, aiming for Sheep Ranch. I supposed that the force sent from Camp Harney was then somewhere near us.

            As soon as my work at Boise was in operation I hurried down the stage road and reached Sheep Ranch on the 14th of June. The next day, while waiting for the scattered companies to come together, I was sitting with Captain Bernard at about 5.30 in the afternoon, in a little room at the stage station, when a mounted party was reported in sight. It proved to be Sarah Winnemucca and her companions. She was well in advance of the party and riding very rapidly. Hastily dismounting she burst into tears and was so fatigued and excited that for some time she could hardly speak. As soon as she was sufficiently recovered to talk intelligently, Bernard, Wood, and Pitcher being present with me, I received her account of her remarkable journey; she had ridden over two hundred miles and met with some thrilling experiences. My comrades thought her statements at the time were exaggerated, but I had sufficient confidence in her story to change my whole plan of movement a change which afterwards proved to be for the best.

            Sarah had ridden to the hostile camp and brought out her father and brother. Others followed them, but were pursued, overtaken, and forced to go back. She heard firing, and feared that her brother Lee was killed. Natchez, another brother, aided the white men to escape from the camp and went with them. Oytes, the Pi-Ute

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Dreamer, and Egan, the chief, with their bands, were still detained, although arms and plunder were offered and threats and coercion made to induce them to join the hostiles. She located the camp near Juniper Lake, just north of Stein's Mountains, giving the number of Indians at about seven hundred. She brought her sister-in-law Mattie with her, and implored help for her father, whom she had left "behind with a few men and guns guarding fugitive women and children.

            Sarah said: " We (Sarah, and the Indians i. e., George and John, Pi-Utes), followed the trail down the O-wy-hee as much as fifteen miles, and then we came to where they (the hostile Bannocks) had camped, and where they had been weeping and cutting their hair, so we knew that Buffalo Horn, their chief, had been killed." She saw articles of clothing and numerous beads broken from their strings and strewn around. They found on the trail the whip of the stage driver, who was killed, and other articles from time to time which made the trail over the rocky beds easier to follow. She and her friends paused for the briefest rest at Mr. G. B. Crawley s farm. Everything combustible had been burned; the fire was still smoldering and fresh human tracks were everywhere.

            Having rested, they followed the freshest of several branching trails, which led them straight toward Stein's Mountains. That day they picked up a clock and a fiddle on the road. Pi-Ute Joe shot a mountain sheep, some strips of which were added to their supplies ; now they were near Juniper Lake ; then five miles farther on they caught a

AMONG OUR HOSTILE INDIANS 393

glimpse of two people on the slope of the mountain dressed like Indians. Sarah s account of this meeting is pathetic: "As we came nearer to them I said to Pi-Ute George, Call to them! He did so. I saw them rise to their feet; I waved my handkerchief at them, as I had done before, and one of them cried, Who are you ?

            "I said, Your sister, Sarah. It was my brother, Lee Winnemucca, who had spoken. Coming nearer Lee said, Oh, dear sister, you have come to save us, for our people are all prisoners of the Bannocks !

            Her brother told her that her father had been badly treated; that his friends had been stripped of their guns, horses, and blankets, and that there was great danger ahead for Sarah and her companions, "because," said Lee, "they will surely kill you as they have threatened to kill every one who comes with messages from the white people ; for they say Indians who bring messages are enemies. Every night they repeat these threats."

            Sarah was not intimidated. Up to this time she and her companions had been dressed like white people, but they now changed to Indians' dress, effecting the transformation by using blankets and putting on war paint, as they knew well how to do; then, still keeping together, they went on and joined the grand encampment beyond Stein's Mountains. "The mountain we had to go over was rocky and steep," said Sarah. " Sometimes it was very hard to climb on our hands and knees, but at last we were up there and looked down into a great hostile assem-

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bly. It was a sight to see. It was beautiful ; over three hundred lodges and four hundred and fifty warriors.

            A little later Sarah succeeded in working her way into the hostile Bannock camp, and then into her father's lodge, where she found several Pi-Ute men and women. " Every one in that lodge whispered, Oh, Sarah, you have come to save us !

            By concerted action some seventy-five stealthily crept out of camp in the night. When they were well on the way they heard a horse behind them. " We lay close to the ground," said Sarah, " and the horse came up to us and stopped. Oh, how my heart did beat! He stood still until some one whistled, and the whistler cried out, Where is my father? The horse s rider proved to be Mattie, Lee Winnemucca s wife.

            After that Sarah and Mattie rode and tented together during the entire campaign. Lee, being with the party, turned back to get more Pi-Utes, and to act for them as a scout and guard. The old chief said: " Ride two and two! Keep close together. Men, look after your wives and children! Six men keep well back for fear we may be followed!"

            Thus Chief Winnemucca s family and friends escaped from the hostile camp and rode for six hours, reaching Summit Springs at the break of day. While stopping there for rest and food, one of their rear guard came riding furiously toward them. " We are followed by the Bannocks! " he cried. " I saw Lee running and they fired at him. I think he is killed."

AMONG OUR HOSTILE INDIANS 895

            Winnemucca's party, thus warned, mounted at once and rushed on again, tired as they were. But Sarah, finding her friends too slow to suit her impatient spirit, took Mattie and two Indians and said to her father:

            " Come, father, give me your orders, for I am going forward to the troops. What shall I tell General Howard ? I am going to where he is this very day."

            Winnemucca answered: " Tell General Howard to send his soldiers to protect me and my people." With this message these brave women and their escort sped on to Sheep Ranch and reported to me, as I have said. Bobbins was immediately dispatched with his well-mounted scouts to meet the old chief and his party and bring them speedily under the protection of the troops. To facilitate this, Sarah sent Pi-Ute Joe back as a guide, and in due time Chief Winnemucca was rescued.

            Sarah said of this extraordinary journey, rather boastfully, but nevertheless with perfect truth: " I went for the government when the officers could not get, for love or money, an Indian or a white man to go."

            According to the reports that came to me the aggregate number of the hostiles varied from seven hundred to fifteen hundred warriors. They had a strong defensible position and expressed fierce de termination to give me battle at Stein's Mountains.

            I received a sad report that McGregor and Downey, finding the Indians so strongly posted, had turned back to their families at Camp Harney.

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            From every consideration Stein's Mountains were just then our objective point. The different columns coming toward me were stopped en route and ordered there ; they were to take every precaution ; carefully scout the country ; pick up Indian men, women, and children, and avoid all ambuscades; were warned not to attack the enemy separately except where there was a reasonable prospect of success, but when an attack was determined on it must be delivered at once and be quick and vigorous. The columns were to keep up constant communication with each other by scouts and couriers, so as to give one another the readiest information and the promptest support in case of need. Colonel Wheaton at Walla Walla was instructed to watch with great care the Cayuses and other Columbia Indians in his district, particularly the Umatillas, and to guard against the successful return of renegades at all times.

            After putting everything in motion, my staff officers and myself, taking Sarah and Mattie as guides and interpreters, drove rapidly from Sheep Eanch to Fort Lyon, resting there a short time. We then made a quick drive to the Baker road and joined our right column under Major Stuart. His men were pressing forward as fast as they could march toward Stein's Mountains.

            At Rhinehart's corner was a large brick house and other buildings filled to repletion with families that had rushed in for mutual safety from the valleys and cattle ranches. My aide, Lieutenant C. E. S. Wood, who was in charge of the scouts, hired all the men in the vicinity to go out and skir-

AMONG OUR HOSTILE INDIANS 397

mish for the government. Every man was mounted upon a Cayuse pony a half-breed animal, swift enough, but often ugly. A woman cried out in anguish to me : " What, send away our husbands ? Who will care for us ? Who will protect us ? :

            Wood replied laconically: "Their going is your protection."

            "Oh," said one in tears, "let the soldiers do that; let the soldiers do the fighting it is their business! &c.

            "Why, yes," the humorous lieutenant remarked, "the soldiers will do the fighting -- your friends will only have to help them find something to fight."

            By the 19th we were within striking distance of the great Indian stronghold. When the Indians caught sight of Bernard s mounted men they lost courage, and rushed eastward and southward, running with great speed, as only Indians can, for over a hundred miles, escaping into a very hilly and heavily wooded tract southwest of Camp Harney. The instant Bernard found that the Indians had fled from Stein s Mountains he pressed after them, following their trail, and putting his own troops to their utmost speed.

 

 

CHAPTER XXX.

INCIDENTS AND HARDSHIPS OF AN INDIAN CAMPAIGN -- THE BATTLE OF BIRCH CREEK -- FLIGHT OF THE INDIANS.

A Chosen Indian Leader -- Panic in an Indian Camp -- Indian Women  for Guides -- Alarming Rumors -- The Battle of Curry Creek --  Camp of the Renegades -- An Innocent-looking Log -- Pulling an Old Indian Squaw Out of It -- Pursuing the Indians -- Picking up a White Man's Scalp -- A Couple of Unreliable Guides -- A Steep Descent of Four Miles -- Finding a Column of Pack-mules -- A Word of Warning -- Locating the Indians -- Getting Ready for Battle -- How a Soldier Feels Before a Battle -- Indians Abandon Their Stronghold -- " Come on, You White Dogs ! "

            CHIEF EGAN had now become the Indians' chosen leader. He had been very reluctant at first to join the Bannocks, but under threats and persuasions he concluded to take Oytes, the Dreamer, as his counselor, and become the military head of all the tribes represented. In former years Egan had successfully fought General Crook and other officers, and had won quite a reputation for heroic valor among both white men and Indians.

            He never risked everything in a pitched battle. As soon as he heard that I was coming with three separate bodies of fighting men and plenty of guns and ammunition, he decided to move rapidly westward to his old stamping ground, where my columns would be separated ; while the Indians would have the protection of extensive forests, and could scatter at will and deceive their pursuers by nu-

AMONG OUR HOSTILE INDIANS 399

merous trails. He hoped also that as he drew nearer to the resorts of the Klamaths and the Umatillas some of them would join his ranks, and that these new allies would bring fresh supplies.

            The heart of old Oytes himself began to weaken when the Indian scouts rushed in crying that more than a thousand mounted men were moving to attack them. Notwithstanding the panic that followed, Egan steadily continued the march, with his warriors heavily encumbered with women, children, and baggage. Their march was phenomenal. No white caravan of like size could stand such tremendous strain and fatigue.

            Meanwhile, I sent Lieutenant Wilkinson, with two soldiers and the two Indian women for guides, to make their way by the stars to Camp Harney. The air was full of alarming rumors and one was that McGregor's troops outside of that post had been met by Egan and annihilated, and that Harney was in great danger of capture and massacre.

            It was the 23d of June. I was with the head of the foot column. We had gone late into camp and an extraordinary quiet reigned. Suddenly, at about eleven o clock that night, Wilkinson startled the outposts by coming back with his Indian guides, and rode rapidly into camp. He had ridden forty-five miles that day from Camp Harney. He brought good tidings. McGregor was united with Bernard ; a battle had occurred the day before, but instead of being defeated they had won a victory. This was the battle of Curry Creek, ninety miles from us, and forty-five beyond Camp Harney.

            After unusual resistance the Indians had fled

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from that field, but had rallied again not far off and continued their flight. Bernard had managed to get four troops of cavalry into the Curry Creek engagement, but, owing to their forced marches over rough ground and long distances, his soldiers were exceedingly weary, and he now called strenuously upon me for reinforcements. That battle was not decisive enough to end the campaign.

            Before eleven o clock the next morning the advance, with myself, entered Camp Harney. Taking but two hours for food and rest, Lieutenant Wood and I rode on toward Captain Bernard, reaching Captain Evan Miles' company of infantry at Sage Hen Springs. Captain Miles was hastening from Harney to support Bernard. Early the following morning we were on the battle-field, and pushed forward to join Bernard, who was still following the trail of the largest body of Indians.

            We learned from some prisoners that the Klamaths, some Columbia River Indians, and a small body of Umatillas were about to join the Bannocks and Pi-Utes. These renegades had gone into camp not far from the John Day Valley, sixty miles south of the Umatilla reservation, and Egan had turned his march northward in that direction. The Indians had to cross a rough range of mountains to get into the John Day Valley, and they were then executing this movement. What a diversified country! Jagged rocks, precipitous slopes, knife-edged divides, deep canyons with sides steep and difficult, the distance from a crest to the mountain stream that tumbled over the rocks far below being sometimes four or five miles.

AMONG OUR HOSTILE INDIANS 401

            It was on the north side of this, the John Day divide, that the Umatillas and other Indians under suspicion were waiting for Chief Egan and his raiders. Along one of the trails we came upon a large, half -decayed log. This log, like so many in veteran forests, was at one end simply a shell. From the very center of it we pulled out an old and decrepit Indian woman clad in tatters. At first she was almost speechless. She was without food, and had crawled into the log to stay there until she died. I gave orders to have her brought to my next night encampment, where Sarah and Mattie took charge of her. She was fed, clothed, and treated with great kindness by all. As soon as she recovered her senses she cried bitterly, and said that her nephew, Buffalo Horn, was dead. She believed old Oytes had been put in his place.

            Sarah and Mattie won her confidence and were rewarded by a full statement of what the Indians had done, and of some of their future plans.

            The 30th of June was an eventful day. On the two preceding days we had experienced the cold of winter in the mountains, and considerable snow had fallen. As we went from Indian camp to Indian camp we found hundreds of pine trees stripped from the bottom up as high as one could reach. Sarah said that the Indians used the inner bark for food. The outer bark helped them to cover the frosty ground for beds, and also added to their fuel. From the camp signs we estimated their numbers to be about fifteen hundred. On a stump near the remains of a lodge we picked up the scalp of a white man.

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            That morning we met two men mine prospectors who wanted employment. Upon their declaring that they were familiar with the country I engaged them as guides. As we went deeper and deeper into the forest and ascended the slopes of the mountains one of the guides, becoming conscience-stricken, deserted, and not long after the other, having halted the train, came back to me and confessed in broken English that he had lost his way. I was greatly puzzled what to do ; every man near me was an utter stranger to that region. After a moment's delay I galloped to the head of the column closely observing the country as I went. I saw plainly by the formation of the ridges that if I could go from hog-back to hog-back I would finally gain the crest.

            The hostile Indians, having no wagons, had been able after crossing the divide to descend by a narrow river canyon. At the risk of finding the northern slope impassable I decided at once to take the chances of advancing. Ordering the wagons to follow me, without uttering a word of the uncertainties that oppressed me, I led the way from ridge to ridge until I gained the summit. There I discovered a spur, a steep one it is true, with a slope not too difficult for wagons. The spur ran northward, and then down into the very country we wanted to reach. That night we were happy to find ourselves in a good camp in a land more familiar to some of our own men:

            The next day had its own trials. Looking down into the deep canyon of the John Day we discovered signs of an old emigrant wagon road. A spur

AMONG OUR HOSTILE INDIANS 403

similar to that of the mountain, only steeper, led from us to the bottom. One can judge of the depth of that canyon when I say that there was a steady down-hill descent of at least four miles. It took from two P. M. until ten o clock that night to worry our train down those difficult steeps into camp. The hill was so precipitous as to cause a constant sliding of the wagons. This sliding was checked by dragging chains, by fastening limbs of large trees to the axle-tree, by hitching a pair of obstinate mules behind the wagon body, and by other emergency contrivances. The most successful experiment was the tying on of long ropes and manning them with soldiers, who watched the wagons in their descent and prevented their capsizing.

            In the valley, the next morning, we saw where another company of volunteers had rushed upon the Indians and been driven back, leaving the dead bodies of two of their number to be buried by our advance.

            We steadily kept on northward until our different columns appeared to be in position to hem in the Indians upon all sides and force them to battle. I was warned by some experienced officers who said: "Ah, General, Chief Egan is 'great'on hiding and running. He always takes to the wooded mountains. He is wary and swift."

            I had come to Pilot Rock, a little hamlet north of the famous Blue Mountains, near the charming little town of Heppner. There were two streams rising in the Blue Mountains a few miles south east of Pilot Rock. They ran northeasterly and emptied into the Umatilla River. The mouths of

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these two streams are miles apart, but their head waters are near together, so near, in fact, that numerous little rivulets can hardly determine which creek to take, till a chance knoll or rock has decided their course.

            It was between these streams near Birch Creek that two of our diligent scouts the night before had found the Indians. Chief Egan had chosen a broad and rugged height for defense. The slopes in front of his warriors, after the detached hill was reached, were steep, stony, deceptive, and extremely difficult. Egan had woods on his right a few hundred yards away, and hills as good as the one he held and other woods behind him.

            At sunrise, July 8th, I was talking hopefully and looking toward that rugged hill, when Sarah Winnemucca said : " No, they will not stop long. The timber is near and the Pi-Utes will get away."

            The sun came up bright and clear, and my columns were soon in motion. Throckmorton, with a well-reputed guide, having some artillery, infantry, and volunteers, took the Butter Creek route ; Bernard, with seven troops of cavalry, and Bobbins, with his scouts and a Gatling gun, accompanied me. We went up the foothills, passing rapidly from knoll to knoll, and struck as directly as possible for the rocky height. There is always a feeling of dread just before a battle. It takes but one bullet to kill you. The thought of death to a comrade is not a happy one, and even the blood of your country s foe is not attractive. The distinction, the glory, the reward they are no compensation.

            As we reached a high crest we saw the Indians

AMONG OUR HOSTILE INDIANS 405

and their ponies among the rocks. They did not act as usual, but kept moving about, some jumping up and down as if in defiance. Their conduct was like Joseph's Nez Perces at the Clear Water the year before, when with blankets tossed high over their heads they danced around, looking and acting like howling dervishes in their frenzied capers, doubtless hoping to inspire terror in our breasts.

            Bernard, taking the trot, began the ascent. The cavalry sped from hill to hill until it reached the vicinity of the enemy. The Indians from between the rocks began to fire at Bernard's soldiers as well as they could down such an unpropitious grade. Our men veered to the right and left as they went up different sides ; several soldiers were hit ; several horses fell under the men, who with difficulty extricated themselves from their stirrups. Soon we saw them clearing the summit. It was speedily done; wave after wave striking the Indians' position front and flank in quick succession.

            But Egan and his warriors carried out their plan. They were too quick for our breathless horses. They had already abandoned their stone-crowned hill, leaving to us only some old horses and played-out mules, which were filling the gaps between the dark rocks, while the Indians themselves appeared triumphant on the next height beyond. Bernard was vexed ; yes, disgusted. Like a flock of birds they were on this pinnacle ; and, like them, they had flown to the next. In a book Sarah Winnemucca has written she says of us :

            " Dear reader, if you could only know the diffi-

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culties of this wilderness you could appreciate the soldiers' royal service. The fight commenced at eight o clock, under a hot sun and with no water. The whole of it was watched by the general commanding. The bullets were whistling all around us and the general said to me and Mattie : Get behind the rocks ; you will get hit. "

            At one time we heard an Indian's shrill call. It was from Oytes. Sarah interpreted it as meaning: "Come on, you white dogs.; what are you waiting for?" We strained our ears to catch more words, but they did not come.

            Bernard endeavored this time, after a short rest for his horses, to cut off their retreat while he ascended the next height, but the rough country and the great exhaustion of the horses and men made it possible for the Indians to elude his next charge, and they soon disappeared from his front altogether. Not many Indians were killed and wounded. Their women, children, and best horses, in droves, were beyond danger before the battle began.

            I felt that night tired and chagrined. This experience reminded me of a hunter chasing an antelope all day with several beautiful chances in his favor, but the animal s quick ears and native fleetness divined the hunter s approach and enabled it to elude all his shots. Unlike the hunter, my object in pursuing these Indians was not to kill, but -- like my dear father chasing bees -- to hive.

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXXI.

A LONG AND EXCITING CHASE -- THE ENGAGEMENTS THAT FOLLOWED -- THRILLING INCIDENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN.

Stumbling Upon Fresh Indian Trails -- Catching Up With the Hostiles -- " See the Enemy ! " -- Indian Tactics in Battle -- A Brutal Cayuse Chief -- The Murder of Chief Egan and His Companions -- Searching for Indian Hiding-places -- Six Hundred Indian Prisoners -- Charging the Indians Across a River -- Murder of a Nez Perce" Scout -- A Remarkable Death Scene -- Surprising a Crowd of Indians -- Breaking up Indian Camps -- Results of the Umatilla Council -- A Burly White Ruffian -- Efforts to Provoke a Quarrel With Me -- Sarah Winnemucca's Criticisms -- Death of Mattie.

            PLACING my chief -of-staff, Major E. C. Mason, in my place at Cayuse Station, I hastened on to Walla Walla to communicate with General McDowell at San Francisco, and to inaugurate a new pursuit. Some Umatillas, professing to be friends, came into Mason's encampment the first night after I had left and were kindly received. They gave false information concerning the hostiles and gathered knowledge from us that they ought not to have had. Their reports fortunately caused Egan to turn back against us.

            Meanwhile, Mason changed his headquarters to the vicinity of the Umatilla reservation, and was gathering our scattered forces into a common camp for rest and recruitment. In executing this movement Captain Evan Miles, having nearly all the Twenty-first Infantry Regiment with him, ran upon fresh Indian trails, which he at once followed.

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            On the 12th of July he made a march of thirty-five miles, and camped at two A. M. on the 13th. While in camp Captain Rodney of the Fourth Artillery arrived with two companies of his regiment, and he also had with him a troop of the First Cavalry, under Captain Bendire. Miles camp, though made in the night, proved to be a good point for observation, and daylight revealed groups of Indians in plain sight who took no pains to conceal their position.

            At first a band of Umatillas, seemingly about to join the hostiles, sent one of their number under cover of a white flag to Captain Miles and had a talk with him, with the result that they wisely remained neutral and were passive spectators during the conflict that followed. Miles made a slight change of location for the convenience of his command in getting coffee and breakfast, but the fires were hardly lighted when the Pi-Utes and Bannocks were seen coming stealthily toward him in large force. Without waiting a moment Miles deployed his men, Rodney's companies being on the left and facing southward, while some companies of infantry formed a semicircular line from Rodney's position westward, putting Bendire's cavalry upon the extreme left. The remaining companies of the Twenty-first Infantry were held in the rear in reserve.

            Captain Miles had two small howitzers which he brought into action near his center. The Indians, as usual, stopped just beyond the zone of immediate danger. They ran into deep and crooked ravines, and concealed themselves as com-

AMONG OUR HOSTILE INDIANS 409

pletely as they could, like our skirmishers, the difference being that if our men heard a call such as "See the enemy! " every individual soldier would spring up and jump upon a log to see where the enemy was, while the Indians would remain motionless or secrete themselves still more effectually. From their hiding places the Indians fired briskly but irregularly, and our skirmishers returned the fire, aiming at puffs of smoke. This kind of fighting lasted a long time and much ammunition was expended with small results, especially upon our side.

            About two o clock in the afternoon Miles ordered Rodney with his battalion to gain ground to the left and then push forward and clear a ravine in his vicinity. Rodney's men sprang forward with enthusiasm and promptly set the Indians in motion. Seeing this Miles made a charge along his entire curvilinear front. Chief Egan did not expect this, for he was intently watching other chances in the game of war. His Indians at once mounted their ponies and swiftly rushed for the foothills behind them. Egan went with them, pursued by the excited troops, who for the time had forgotten both breakfast and dinner. The chase continued for more than three miles up the mountain steeps and into the thick forest. At last, worn out with fatigue, our men at dark went into camp where they were.

            Meantime, Mr. Cornoyer, finding that many of his Umatillas had been treacherous, sent a hurried dispatch to Captain Miles to return at once, saying that he feared the agency and everything connected

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with it would be destroyed. Tired as the soldiers were with the terrific march of the day and night before and an all-day battle, they silently but hurriedly turned back and were soon at the agency, where their commander made thorough preparation for defense and then gave his men needed food and rest.

            After this defeat the renegade allies Cayuses, Umatillas, and Columbias came to Captain Miles and proposed to act on his side. Their real leader was Umapine. He was a Cayuse Indian about six feet in height, having a closely-knit frame, thick chest, and broad shoulders. When not on the war path he had a friendly eye and not an unpleasant smile, yet the impression he left upon you was that he possessed a fierce animal nature. When he ate he consumed twice as much as any other strong man ; when he fasted he could go a long time with out food. In war he displayed profound treachery and positive enjoyment of murder. Even his mates shuddered at his brutality. After committing atrociously wicked acts he would strut with pride and boast of his brutal prowess.

            The Pi-Utes and Bannocks had leaned upon him as a friend. After the interview with Miles, the day following the battle, Umapine, with a few followers, overtook Chief Egan and his fleeing warriors. The next day he brought back to the agency ghastly signs of his terrible work. He had murdered Egan and some of his companions.

            The talk of Natchez, Sarah Winnemucca's brother, to the Umatillas in a subsequent council tells its own story. After showing the Umatillas

AMONG OUR HOSTILE INDIANS 413

that they had promoted war by their delegates, and then urged Egan and Oytes to make it, he said: " You have called them fools (the Pi-Utes) to stay on the reservation and starve ; and another thing, you have helped the Bannocks to fight the soldiers. After all that, it must be a beautiful sensation to cut a man or woman to pieces and then skin their heads and fasten them on a pole and dance around them as if you were happy! "

            After these events I divided my command again in order to follow up the numerous trails of the hostiles, visit every hiding-place, and search the entire field. My object was to bring in the Indians as prisoners, and, if possible, allay the wild fears of the ranch people and settlers, who never felt sure of protection until they saw the troops.

            I kept up this work for more than a month, sweeping southward across the John Day Valley and on to Harney Lake, and westward over all our campaigning ground, using at times as many as ten different columns.

            When passing the Malheur agency for the second time I put Colonel M. P. Miller there to do what he could to bring in the Indian stragglers. He thoroughly probed the country, gathered many wanderers, kept the prisoners sent to him, and caught all who fell into his net. The old Indian woman whom Sarah and Mattie had cared for had come back to health and strength. Miller sent her out to hunt for frightened people, be they men, women or children, instructing her to show them where they could come for food, shelter, and permanent peace. Miller wrote to me afterwards:

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            " The pickets brought them in (those that the old woman had seen and informed) and they had a talk with me to the effect that their band desired to surrender. I told them that they could come in as prisoners of war." There came to him in all twenty-seven warriors, seventy-two women and children, with fifty horses and ponies and ten guns.

            Colonel J. W. Forsyth, who in the subsequent operations commanded my right column, rendered me an account of his several days of marching: " It was up and down steep canyons, over the highest ridges of the mountains, and through a perfect network of fallen timber." He went there because the hostile Indians had led the way. He struck their rear guard in a deep ravine on the north fork of the John Day River. The ascent was so steep that in getting out of it several of the pack animals rolled into the stream and were lost.

            The Indians kept a rear guard of -about forty warriors. Forsyth s eight scouts were close upon their heels. One of them accidentally discharged his carbine and this set the Indians to firing. They killed our courier, Mr. Forman, and severely wounded one of our scouts. Forsyth instantly rushed his line forward up a precipitous hill, but not soon enough to get a fair chance at the foe, who had mounted and fled before the troops could reach the crest.

            When I reached Boise again I found there twenty Indian prisoners that Lieutenant Guy Howard of the Twelfth Infantry, with a part of Captain Vivien s company, had succeeded in gathering up near Ladd's Canyon. In like manner

AMONG OUR HOSTILE INDIANS 415

other small detachments had found Indians in hiding and had brought them in until at last there were at Camp Harney over six hundred Indians under guard.

            There were no more battles of any consequence and scarcely any organized resistance, excepting on the part of the Bannock contingent which had separated and fled from the Pi-Utes and other allies.

            Major Sanford wrote, on July 18th: "I received information from Lieutenant Williams in command of our Nez Perce scouts (near Ladd's Canyon) that he had been fired upon by a party of white men, and that one of his Indians was mortally wounded." The other Nez Perce scouts were very much incensed at what they considered an outrage, and determined to return home. The white men claimed that they thought these scouts were Bannocks, but the Nez Perces insisted that they were dressed in their scouts' uniform, and were moving in a proper way. After that they distrusted the white men altogether. Before his death the wounded Indian scout sent for the white man who had shot him, took him by the hand, looked him in the face, told him that he forgave him, and besought the other scouts to do the same. His comrades gave him a simple Christian burial. One of their number prayed, another repeated some words from the Scriptures, and all joined in singing as they committed his body to earth. Could a white Christian have been nobler than that dying Nez Perce scout ?

            There was one band of mounted Indians that,

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in spite of shelling and rifle shooting, started to cross the river. These were scattered, though a very few of them succeeded in reaching the other shore. This was the band that had murdered Mr. and Mrs. Perkins, and brought suspicion upon five hundred other Indians along the upper Columbia who had continued to be faithful to their promises.

            Our campaign was not finished until I had returned to Umatilla and had a prolonged council with the different bodies of Indians, Cayuses, Columbias, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas.

            The results of the Umatilla council were to send several prominent Indians whose loyalty was suspected to safe forts, there to be kept for a time as hostages for the good behavior of the remainder.

            When the councils were concluded Lieutenant Wood and myself took the first steamer down the Columbia. The lieutenant, worn out by fatigue, was soon fast asleep upon a side seat. I was sitting near him and half dreaming when a burly citizen approached and roughly accosted me. He was fairly well dressed, but had evidently been drinking. On seeing me he had doubtless boasted to his boon companions that he would show me how the white settlers felt toward me and the authorities who were over me. He began: " I hear that you have allowed those accursed Indians to surrender."

            " Of course I have," I answered. " Whenever Indians give up and put out the white flag they are taken as prisoners of war."

            He then said savagely : "I wouldn't have done it. Every last one of 'em should have been killed ! "

            " Then, sir," I replied, " you would have been

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a murderer. It would be more than my commission is worth to do such a dastardly thing as to kill prisoners of war."

            Showing great anger, he uttered more insulting language, and imputed unworthy motives to my officers and myself. The crowd seemed to be encouraging him to provoke a quarrel with me.

            I then arose and said with all the decision of manner I could muster : " Sir, I do not know who you are, but I wish you to understand that I am a soldier who has never turned a corner to avoid a bullet; now what do you want? "

            He instantly changed his tone and said, as if ashamed of himself: " Oh, nothing come, take a drink."

            The crowd was now on my side, and after hurrahing for me, I was left to join my aide-de-camp in his undisturbed repose.

            Sarah Winnemucca, some time after the war, gave a succinct account of our transferring the Pi-Utes from Camp Harney, where we had collected most of them, to the Yakima agency some sixty miles away. She said : * No human being would do such a thing as that, send people across a fearful mountain in midwinter ! We could have kept them until spring, but our instructions were imperative to deliver them to Agent Wilbur at Fort Simcoe. The work was done by Captain William H. Winters of the First Cavalry. He made short marches, and succeeded in taking them through the rough country with his small escort of two troops of cavalry. Two adults, who were already ill, and three children perished on the journey.

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            Sarah says : " One afternoon Mattie and I were out to get five women who got away during the night; an officer was sent with us. We were riding very fast and my sister Mattie's horse jumped to one side and threw her off. The blood ran out of her mouth and I thought she would die right away, but, poor dear, she went on, for an ambulance was at our command. " This injury finally caused her death.

            On the Simcoe reservation, notwithstanding the great care of the venerable Indian agent, Mr. Wilbur, there was very bitter feeling between the newcomers and the occupants of the reservation, who were already far advanced in the ways of civilization. Sarah denounced not only the agent himself and other employees, but all the civilized Indians with whom the Pi-Utes had to do.

            Later, upon Mr. Wilbur s request, I saw Sarah and gave her letters to Washington, which she could use after she had visited her father and all the friendly Pi-Utes who were then in Nevada. One remark in a letter which she bore is this: " Mr. Wilbur, the Yakima Indian agent, thinks Sarah is now a Christian and wishes me to aid her to prosecute her journey to Nevada, which I have gladly done. . . . Please do what you can to assist her to have a fair interview with Mr. Stickney of the Indian board and also with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs."

            Friends of humanity may say, " The pictures you have given us are sad enough, and do they not show how cruel the whites have been to these Indians ? I answer : " Yes, if we take only the In-

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dians' point of view." But surely our army officers were not cruel toward them. The Indians first believed one of their old Dreamers about the coming of the Messiah. Then the Pi-Utes took advantage of a grievance, viz.: the removal from them of a good agent and his wife and giving them another whom they claimed to be bad. I would have helped them to remedy that, if they had asked. They conspired with the Bannocks and renegades and appealed to arms, and believed for a time that they were strong enough, when combined, to defeat the white troops and clear their region of the soldiers and all the settlers. The outbreak was met promptly by the troops. The Indians were defeated in every battle; they broke into small parties, but were pursued relentlessly until a part were captured and the rest driven far beyond the field of operations. The prisoners were gathered together at Fort Harney and Vancouver Barracks and the whole case submitted to Washington for instructions.

            It would have been a reward to misconduct to have given them back the reservation which they had robbed and deserted when they went to war. Any hardships that occurred were merely incidental to the circumstances. Camp Harney, in the midst of the mountains, could not easily be provisioned to keep the garrison through the winter, and it appeared necessary to the Indian bureau to have the Indians sent to a better place at once. Extraordinary expense was incurred for their protection and comfort. The extreme destitution of the women and children was due to the rigors of war,

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a war which every soldier would, if in his power, gladly have prevented. Had the Pi-Utes accepted the situation at Yakima, cultivated their lands, and built houses and fences, as the Simcoe Indians had done, they would have been prosperous and happy.

            But it was too much of a transformation to effect in a single season. Many of the Simcoe Indians, as we have seen, live in good houses and are prosperous farmers ; some of them are each worth several thousand dollars fortunes accumulated by their own industry. They were indeed an object lesson to the Pi-Utes, but the Pi-Utes were not yet far enough along " the white man s road " to take advantage of their good fortune. They became homesick, and begged to go from a land of fertility to a comparatively barren waste in Nevada which had always been the hunting and fishing ground of their people. Their cry was heeded, like that of Joseph and the non-treaty Nez Perces, and so they returned to beat their tom-toms and dance and dream in their old haunts.