Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/95

 moral in this. It was the old custom of their race come down unquestioned from Adam and Eve and had the full sanction of parents and friends.

Nevertheless to this trustfulness and innocence the terrible physical punishment that had been evolved for a race of men who had been educated for centuries was ruthlessly applied, and to make the situation still more unhappy and apparently unjust, no remedial or palliative agencies were known to the victims. The cruel thing about the early history of Oregon was that the trader came so long before the missionary that death's work was largely done to the Indian woman before either knowledge or help could come to her.

One of the saddest sights of early days was that of young Indian women driven out of the