retaliation which might be expected. Yellow Serpent, he said, had returned to Oregon burning with rage and grief, and swearing to avenge the murder of his son in the near future.[1] Not only the bereaved chief's own tribe, but others that were allied, related, or friendly to it, were furiously excited against the white men, both on account of the murder of Elijah and because certain persons from the Willamette Valley, now settled in California, had called the Oregon Indians 'dogs' and 'thieves.' So furious was the indignation of the tribes, continued the envoy extraordinary, that a scheme was on foot to raise two thousand warriors among the Cayuses, Walla Wallas, Nez Percés, Spokanes, Pend d'Oreilles, and Shoshones, and march at once into California to exact retribution by pillage and slaughter. There was an influential party among the natives, Ellis added, who were for holding the Americans in Oregon responsible for Elijah's death, since it was one of their countrymen who had killed him. Should this be avoided, however, he was specially charged to learn whether the Oregon settlers would remain neutral while the people of California were being swept from the face of the earth.
Such a relation was enough to make one shudder; and it was all the more alarming when the hearer was officially responsible for any trouble that might occur with the natives. Perhaps White showed agitation; at all events, the envoy pushed his advantage by referring to another source of discontent which had nothing to do with the matter immediately in hand. It seems that when the immigration of 1844 was expected, White had sent to the natives a number of ten-dollar drafts, presumably made payable by the government, with which he said cattle might be bought from the immigrants. This he claims to have done in order to deter the natives from plundering the new-comers. But the immigrants had declined to accept the drafts,
- ↑ This threat was never fulfilled, though the Californians subsequently had cause to remember that it had been made. See Hist. Cal., this series.
