Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/143



Coweliskies alone with their dead. Chief Umtux was buried that night, but how and where no man save his Indians ever knew, and they never told.

If you will look upon a map you will see a place about twelve or fifteen miles Northeast of Vancouver that bears to this day the name of "Battleground." Near here the Indians stood at bay, and near here Umtux was buried.

The death of Umtux was a direct blow at the peace that then prevailed between the Indians and the white men in Western Oregon, and his murder was an ad of violence that disgraces the pioneer annals of Oregon, but there was more to come, and what happened afterwards shows in still another light the less noble side of the pioneer character, for the pioneer men had the faults of their virtues. Their bold