Upon being pursued, they again scattered like quail, and only two women and children were captured. The following day the train was sent for, and the citizens notified that they could accomplish nothing by coming farther. Bernard continued to follow the trail of the mounted Indians for another day, when he returned to Camp Watson, having travelled 630 miles in twenty-six days. He spoke of a report often before circulated that there were white men among the Malheur band of Shoshones, the troops having heard the English language distinctly spoken during the battle of the 18th. He estimated the number of Indians, men, women, and children, at 300, and the fighting men at eighty. The loss of all their provisions and other property, it was thought, would disable them.[1]
In August Lieutenant-colonel R. F. Beirne, of the 14th infantry, from Camp Watson, marched from The Dalles along the Cañon City road to Boisé, scouting the country along his route. On arriving at Fort Boisé, he was ordered to scout the Burnt River region, where the Indians were more troublesome, if that were possible, than ever before. The same was true of the Powder River district and Cañon City; and the inhabitants complained that the troops drove the Indians upon the settlements. To this charge Steele replied that this could not always be avoided. But the people of the north-eastern part of Oregon asserted, whether justly or not, that Halleck favored California, by using the main strength of the troops in his division to protect the route from Chico to the Idaho mines, so that the California merchants should be able to monopolize the trade of the mines, while the Oregon merchants were left to suffer on the road from the Columbia River to the mines of Idaho, or to protect themselves as they best could. The stage company suffered equally with packers and merchants.
Finally Halleck visited south-eastern Oregon; and
- ↑ Alta California, Aug. 22, 1866; Mess. and Docs, Abridg. 1866–7, 501.
