even feared that a rescue might be attempted by the Indians on the day of execution, and men coming in from the country round brought their rifles, hiding them in the outskirts of the town, not to create alarm.[1] Nothing occurred, however, to cause excitement. The Catholic priests took charge of the spiritual affairs of the condemned savages, administering the sacraments of baptism and confirmation, Father Veyret attending them to the scaffold, where prayers for the dying were offered. "Touching words of encouragement," says Blanchet, "were addressed to them on the moment of being swung into the air: 'Onward, onward to heaven, children; into thy hands, Lord Jesus, I commend my spirit.'"[2] Oh loving and consistent Christians! While the world of Protestantism regarded the victims slain at Waiilatpu as martyrs, the priests of Catholicism made martyrs of the murderers, and wafted their spirits straight to heaven. So far as the sectarian quarrel is concerned it matters nothing, in my opinion, and I care not whose converts these heathen may have been, if of either; but sure I am that these Cayuses were martyrs to a destiny too strong for them, to the Juggernaut of an incompressible civilization, before whose wheels they were compelled to prostrate themselves, to that relentless law, the survival of the fittest, before which, in spite of religion or science, we all in turn go down.
With the consummation of the last act of the Cayuse tragedy Lane's administration may be said to have closed, though he was for several weeks occupied with his duties as Indian agent in the south, a full account of which I shall give later. Having made a
- ↑ Bacon's Merc. Life Or., MS., 25.
- ↑ Cath. Ch. in Or., 182.
my pocket the death-warrant of them Indians, signed by Governor Lane. The marshal will execute them men as certain as the day arrives.' Pritchett looked surprised and remarked: 'That is not what you just said, that you would do anything for me.' 'You were talking then to Meek,' Joe returned, 'not to the marshal, who always does his duty.' Victor's River of the West, 496. The marshal's honor was less corrupt than his grammar.
