measures their countrymen might adopt could furnish the Cayuses with a motive for further atrocities. Taking sixteen men, he left Vancouver on the 7th of December, within twenty-four hours after McBean's messenger arrived. Hinman accompanied him; and on arriving at the Dalles, finding that the natives there had the previous day taken four horses from the mission enclosure, an act which could signify nothing less than hostilities, he advised Hinman to remove his family, and all the Americans at the Dalles, to the Willamette, leaving only a trusty Indian in charge of the mission property, advice which was immediately adopted.
Ogden arrived with his party at Port Walla Walla on the evening of the 19th of December,[1] and found that none of the captive women or children had been killed, though they had narrowly escaped, having been 'decreed against,' but saved by the interposition of McBean, who, hearing of the intention of the Cayuses, sent his interpreter to them with a message warning them that "they had already gone too far" in what they had done,[2] and requesting them to withhold their hands from further crimes. Ogden's first effort was to call the chiefs together and hold a council to learn the plan with regard to their prisoners. For this purpose couriers were immediately despatched to the Cayuses, and on the 23d the council was assembled.
- ↑ There is a disagreement of dates here. In Ogden's letter to Mr Walker he says he reached Walla Walla on the 12th, at least so it is printed in the Spectator, but five days was too little time to get to that post in the winter; and 12 days was rather a long time, but many things might occur to delay him, and as the other authorities agree on the 19th, I think it the true date.
- ↑ 'When my messenger,' he says, 'arrived, Indian women, armed with knives and other implements of war, were already assembled near the house where the captives were, awaiting the order of the Chief Tiloukaikt, who was present. On being informed of my request, he hung down his head and paused, then with a wave of his hand peremptorily ordered the women away, who abusing him, called him a coward.' Letter of McBean, in Walla Walla Statesman, March 16, 1866. Mrs Mary Saunders, later Mrs Husted, disputes with McBean the honor of having saved the lives of the women and children by getting on her knees to Tiloukaikt; but I think the savage more likely to have considered McBean's threat than her prayer. Mrs Husted, who long resided in San Francisco, became, like many others who were of adult years at that time, a nervous wreck, incapable of reasoning upon the events which destroyed her mental and bodily health.
