sterile country to Puebla Valley, the expedition turned northward to Camp Alvord, having lost so much time in escort duty that the original design of exploring about the head waters of the Owyhee could not be carried out. The last wagons reached Drew's camp, two miles east of Alvord, on the 31st of August, and from this point, with a detachment of nineteen men, Drew proceeded to Jordan Creek Valley and Fort Boisé, escorting the immigration to these points, and returning to camp September 22d, where he found an order requiring his immediate return to Fort Klamath, to be present with his command at a council to be held the following month with the Klamaths, Modocs, and Panina's band of Snake Indians. On his return march Drew avoided going around the south-eastern point of the Warner Mountains, finding a pass through them which shortened his route nearly seventy miles, the road being nearly straight between Steen and Warner Mountains, and thence westward across the ridge into Goose Lake Valley, with a saving in distance of another forty miles. On rejoining his former trail he found it travelled by the immigration to Rogue River Valley, which passed down Sprague River and by the Fort Klamath road to Jacksonville. A line of communication was opened from that place to Owyhee and Boisé, which was deemed well worth the labor and cost of the expedition, the old immigrant route being shortened between two and three hundred miles. The military gain was the discovery of the haunt of Panina and his band at Warner Mountain, and the discovery of the necessity for a post in Goose Lake Valley.[1]
Congress having at length made an appropriation of $20,000 for the purpose of making a treaty with
- ↑ Hay's Scraps, iii. 121–2.
of encamping, picketing, and guarding, with all the details of an advance through an enemy's country, showing that nothing escaped his observation, and that what was worth copying he could easily learn.
