Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/386

Rh. After making some delay and difficulty about it, he appeared to relent, and promised to accept the horses provided Tiloukaikt, and all concerned in the assault, should go and beg pardon of the doctor, which they consented to do. So again the sky was clear over Waiilatpu.

Meanwhile Spalding was having similar trouble at Lapwai. The Nez Percés pulled down his mill, claiming it to be their own, and assaulted him with a gun, Mrs Spalding herself not escaping insult. There had not been one year in the five from 1837 to 1842, in which some of these occurrences had not taken place.

Surrounded by difficulties and dangers such as these, it is no wonder that the Protestant missionaries resented the advent of the Catholics. The natives could not fail to see that there was trouble between their teachers, and their mischievous nature made them quick to take advantage of the situation. They carried stories back and forth, taking a malicious delight in exaggerating such scraps of scandal as were blown about their ears upon the breezes of religious rivalry.

While A. B. Smith was at the Kamiah mission he reduced the Nez Percé dialect to grammatical rules. In the summer of 1839 the Lapwai mission received a visit from the printer of the Honolulu mission, E. O. Hall, who brought as a present from the first native church of Honolulu a small printing-press and some type. He remained long enough to teach the printer's art to Spalding and Rogers, and on this press were printed primers in the native language for the use of the pupils, a collection of hymns, and some