Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/759

708 were encouraged to remain, and sent back to their chiefs with a few trifling presents.

The discipline of the army was bad. Several of the men left at Fort Lee returned to the Willamette because they were not permitted to fight Indians; and Captain Ross resigned for some reason equally foolish; while much disorder prevailed in the commissary department; and annoying jealousies were indulged in by some who had not provided themselves with private stores. In spite of these drawbacks, the army maintained a generally cheerful tone and practised their military manoeuvres with increasing dexterity, as they moved slowly to the John Day River without encountering any natives either hostile _ or friendly—an indication of enmity in Indian tactics. On the 18th, at the upper crossing of John Day River, it became apparent that a camp of the enemy had left that place the previous night, as the newly opened caches demonstrated, and Major Lee was ordered in pursuit, returning at midnight without having overtaken them.

On the 21st, after a hard day's march, the wagons not getting into camp with the provisions until late in the night, and flour being scarce, the company of Captain Maxon took a vote on the propriety of turning back without orders. On the following day Colonel Gilliam remained in camp, and after a military parade, made a speech to the army upon the duties of a soldier and the dishonor of deserting the cause in which they were enlisted, promising that the men who had first moved in the mutiny should be remembered in a manner befitting their conduct; which well-deserved reproof had the effect to check desertion, though it did not prevent other infractions of discipline, and the waste of ammunition by the firing of

guns in camp.

On approaching the Cayuse country the natives could be seen moving off toward the Blue Mountains,