Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/773

722 added their solicitations to the entreaties of Sticcas, the volunteers encamped, Captain English with forty-two men being ordered back to Fort Waters with the cattle and other property brought in by the Cayuses In the talk with Sticcas which followed, the chief announced that the Cayuses had decided that they would not surrender Tauitau nor Tamsucky. Gilliam proposed that for the person of Joe Lewis he would release five others of the guilty; but as this would be in-violation of the agreement that the commissioners had made with the Nez Percés, they refused their consent, and withdrew from the council, returning with English to Waiilatpu, and thence to Fort Walla Walla, the Dalles, and Oregon City.

The commander had long wished to be freed from the peace commission, which was daily lessening the probabilities of the capture of the murderers. However that may be, Gilliam made his own agreement with Sticcas, who returned to the Cayuse camp, and soon after the volunteers, one hundred and fifty-eight in number, resumed their march toward Snake River. On the 11th they met three Indians bearing a flag, and driving some of the horses which had been stolen while the army was en route to Waiilatpu, which they were restoring as a peace-offering. These Indians reported that Sticcas had taken Joe Lewis, and had started with him to meet the volunteers, but that he had been rescued/and the property retaken, which the chief was bringing to deliver to Gilliam. This intelligence caused Gilliam to hasten forward, as he now strongly suspected Sticcas of deception. On the 13th, while encamped at a spring near the Tucannon River he received a message from Tauitau, who professed friendship, and an intention to forsake the company of the hostile Cayuses, adding that he was encamped on the Tucannon, a little farther up, and that Tamsucky had gone to Red Wolfs place on the Snake River in the Nez Percé country; and Tiloukaikt had