Peter Skeeii Ogden of the Hudson's Bay Company arrived from Vancouver, pushing through at the utmost speed on learning of the massacre, to try to save the captives. It was no easy matter to do this; but by exerting all his influence and authority, Mr. Ogden finally succeeding in ransoming not alone those at Waiilatpu, but the people at the Spalding mission as well—a total of fifty-seven persons. All were taken down the river, finding friends and homes among the settlers of the Willamette valley, where they were soon joined by the missionaries from the northern station.^ Declaration of war. When the news of the massacre reached the Willamette valley (December 8), it produced the wildest alarm. No one knew how far this atrocity might be the result of a union among the up-river tribes for the purpose of destroying all of the white people in Oregon. They proposed, however, not to wait till the Indians could reach the valley, but to send a force of men up the river at once. So great was the excitement and enthusiasm that in a single day a company of troops was raised, equipped as well as possible, furnished with a flag made by the women of Oregon City, and hurried forward to the scene of danger. In a short time an entire regiment was provided, by means of which, in the space of a few months, the Cayuses were severely punished, and
1 A generation after these events took place Jesse Applegate alluded feelingly to this service of Mr. Ogden as "an act of pure mercy and philanthropj', which money could neither hire nor reward."
