it, on my return I will see what can be done for you; but I do not promise to prevent war. Deliver me the prisoners to return to their friends, and I will pay you a ransom, that is all."[1]
Such was Ogden's address to the chiefs, contemplating, as he truthfully said, only the rescue of the prisoners, without altering the relations of the company toward the Indians, whose friendship they had long possessed and did not mean to lose. Neither did he intend to anticipate the action of the American government or people.
The Indian impulse, shifting as the sands of the sea, gave way to Ogden's superior will. With some weak efforts to excuse the disposition to yield, Tauitau consented to the ransom of the captives. The Hudson's Bay Company's men were married to Indian women, and were therefore his brothers; he could not refuse his brother's request. Tiloukaikt, besides the tie of blood, recognized the claim of the company upon him made by allowing their dead to be buried side by side. "Chief!" he cried, "your words are weighty—your hairs are gray. We have known you a long time. You have had an unpleasant journey to this place. I cannot, therefore, keep the families back. I make them over to you, which I would not do to another younger than yourself." Peupeumoxmox remarked that he had nothing to say: the Americans were changeable; but he agreed with Tauitau that the captives should be given up.[2] The
- ↑ Or., Spectator, Jan. 20, 1848. Brouillet, in Authentic Account, materially alters the matter and the meaning of Ogden's address, which was published in the Or. Spectator, less than a month after it was delivered, and I which I take to be correct in substance and spirit. The amount of falsifying which the clergy on both sides thought necessary in order to avenge sectarian affronts is something astounding to the secular mind.
- ↑ Contradictory opinions have prevailed concerning the complicity of Peupeumoxmox. Tolmie, in Puget Sound, MS., 28, tells an anecdote that is in his favor. A messenger from Waiilatpu, coming with the news of the massacre, was asked by the chief what part he had in it. On his answering that he had killed certain persons, 'Take that fellow,' said Peupeumoxmox, 'and hang him to the nearest tree.' Another statement is, that when the Cayuses proposed going to war the chief warned them not to make the mistake of considering the Americans cowards because they would not fight when
