Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/133

82 destruction on Daniel Lee and Cyrus Shepard; but this Lee denies. The Killamooks brought a lad of their tribe to the Mission for instruction, who would neither work nor learn to read; all day long he would sit on the bank of the Willamette gazing tearfully toward the coast, where he was born, exhibiting all the anguish of an exile; hence on the first visit of his people he was permitted to depart. In the midst of the harvest the effect of noxious exhalations from the freshly ploughed earth, which had for a long time been poisoning their blood while unsubstantial diet thinned it, became distressingly manifest in fierce attacks of intermittent fever, each member of the Mission family being in turn prostrated. Fortunately the disease yielded to medicine, and all recovered.

About the beginning of September Louis Shangaratte of the French settlement, suddenly died from the bursting of a blood-vessel, leaving three half-breed orphans and five Indian slaves without a home. McLoughlin, zealous for the Mission and the children, desired Jason Lee to take charge of this family and of whatever property Shangaratte might have left them. The proposition was accepted on condition that the slaves be emancipated. These eight persons proved a burden on the establishment, which was partially relieved by the elopement of two of the natives. Soon three of the others, including one of Shangaratte's children, died of syphilis, a disease by which