Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/740

Rh measures their countrymen might adopt could furnish the Cayuses with a motive for further atrocities. Taking sixteen men, he left Vancouver on the 7th of December, within twenty-four hours after McBean's messenger arrived. Hinman accompanied him; and on arriving at the Dalles, finding that the natives there had the previous day taken four horses from the mission enclosure, an act which could signify nothing less than hostilities, he advised Hinman to remove his family, and all the Americans at the Dalles, to the Willamette, leaving only a trusty Indian in charge of the mission property, advice which was immediately adopted.

Ogden arrived with his party at Port Walla Walla on the evening of the 19th of December, and found that none of the captive women or children had been killed, though they had narrowly escaped, having been 'decreed against,' but saved by the interposition of McBean, who, hearing of the intention of the Cayuses, sent his interpreter to them with a message warning them that "they had already gone too far" in what they had done, and requesting them to withhold their hands from further crimes. Ogden's first effort was to call the chiefs together and hold a council to learn the plan with regard to their prisoners. For this purpose couriers were immediately despatched to the Cayuses, and on the 23d the council was assembled.