CHAPTER VIII.
THE YAKIMA AFFAIR.
One day the commanding officer sent for me. Oh, how my heart did jump! I said to Mattie, “There is bad news.” Truly I had not felt like this since the night Egan was killed by the Umatillas. I got ready and went down to the office, trembling as if something fearful was waiting for me. I walked into the office. Then the officer said to me,
“Sarah, I have some news to tell you and I want you to keep it still until we are sure if it will be true.” I then promised I would keep it still if it was not too awful bad news.
He said, “It is pretty bad.” He looked at me and said, “Sarah, you look as if you were ready to die. It is nothing about you; it is about your people. Sarah, an order is Issued that your people are to be taken to Yakima Reservation, across the Columbia River.”
I said, “All of my people?”
“No, not your father’s, but all that are here.” I asked, “What for?”
He said he did not know.
I said, “Major, my people have not done anything, and why should they be sent away from their own country? If there are any to be sent away, let it be Oytes and his
men, numbering about twenty-five men in all, and the few
