Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/746

Rh Nez Percé chiefs, who had not yet returned to Lapwai, consented to go at once and bring Spalding and the others from that station, should they wish to come; the anxious desire to escape having been thus far carefully concealed from the Nez Percés. Ogden, in his letter to Spalding, which the young chiefs carried, advised the missionary to lose no time in joining him, and to make no promises to the Nez Percés, being unaware, perhaps, of the promise already given. He wrote immediately to Ogden that he should hasten his departure, and. all the more because the young chiefs had assured him that the Cayuses would exterminate them should they learn that the Americans were intending to call them to account. As nothing was more likely than that such a purpose was harbored by the Americans, he was aware of the value of Ogden's advice to hasten to Walla Walla.

A letter was also despatched from Walla Walla to the Chemakane mission, in which the purpose of Ogden to do nothing which might interfere with the future course of the United States in dealing with the Cayuse murderers was reiterated, and in which he

ex-