Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/247

196 shot-pouch which Lee wore about his neck, and believed it a bad medicine with which he intended to kill them all. Gagnier's wife knew this, and with her brother kept watch through the whole night, never permitting the camp-fire to go out, or her eyelids to close. It was not strange that these savages should be alarmed at the shot-pouch. Like the tribes of the Columbia, they had suffered from such fatal diseases since white men came as to have been nearly swept from the earth. Hines tells us that all he could obtain knowledge of in that part of the country were no more than three hundred and seventy-five souls, and expresses his conviction that the doom of extinction is over this wretched race; and that the hand of Providence was removing them to give place to a people more worthy of so beautiful and fertile a country—a doctrine comforting to the missionary who fails to perceive its unfair reflection on Providence.

With such convictions, it was scarcely to be expected that a mission should prosper anywhere; so after a hasty exploration of the Umpqua Valley, the missionaries returned home, and the subject of a station in that quarter was dropped.

Soon after his return from the Umpqua country, a misunderstanding arose between Jason Lee and Elijah White. The reason of the rupture remains somewhat of a mystery. White himself said it was an honest difference of opinion in relation to the best way of carrying on the Mission work. The truth is,