Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/747

696 his great anxiety, which had not permitted him to sleep for two nights. This letter was not written until the 31st of December, and the alarm from which Ogden was suffering was occasioned by the fact that he had no sooner received the captives at Walla Walla, by agreement, on the 29th, than rumors were received by the natives of the arrival of the first company of the volunteer riflemen at Walla Walla. The excitement occasioned by this intelligence it was feared might cause Spalding's company, which had not yet arrived, to be cut off, and any such resumption of hostilities would certainly be fatal to the success of his efforts for the rescue of even the Waiilatpu captives; for the rage of the savages would permit them to stop at nothing. But to his great relief Spalding arrived on the first of January, accompanied by a large force of Nez Percés. After spending another night in earnest council with these natives, always more friendly and more tractable than their relatives the Cayuses, Ogden embarked the ransomed company for Vancouver, thankful to be able to do so.

Nor was he gone a moment to soon. A few hours after his departure fifty Cayuses arrived at the fort with the purpose of taking and killing Spalding, as they had all along declared their intention of doing, should they learn that any but peace commissioners were on the way to their country. It was this