chilling of the sweat bath. Many of the Indians who submitted themselves to the doctor's treatment died nevertheless. With each death a new enemy was made for the physician. The wife of Tamahas, already called the murderer, died while under Whitman's treatment.[1] According to some accounts, the son of Tamahas died.[2] Possibly it was both. At any rate the Indian's desire for revenge was aroused. He would deal with the white doctor as with his own tewats.
Now comes the final scene. The doctor had ridden twenty-five miles to the Umatilla to attend sick Indians.[3] He remained until the afternoon of Sunday, November 28, 1847. While there he was warned by his staunch friend, Isticas, of the stories being circulated by the half-breed, Joe Lewis, and of the threats against his own life, and for the first time became really alarmed. He rode home as rapidly as possible, concerned for his family and the safety of his mission. He relieved Mrs. Whitman, who was caring for the sick in the hospital room, and watched all night with them himself. The next morning, November 29, he was busy at his medicine case, probably preparing more medicines for the sick, when two, some accounts say three, Indians approached him. While one asked for medicine for his family, which the good doctor reached to get, another struck him on the head with a tomahawk. The massacre had begun. It is not necessary to enter here into the details of this sanguinary event which has cast its shadow over the northwest for nearly ninety years. The good doctor who came to old Oregon to minister to its people, died in the act of service, a martyr as truly as any saint of old.
As we study the fragmentary writings of Doctor Whitman, as we read the testimony of those who knew him, worked with him, or came into contact with him, we are impressed with the greatness of the man, his simplicity, his goodness of heart, his
devotion to the cause which brought him to Oregon. His labor
