Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/112

100 entirely different. It was a new creation. The Snakes, Piutes and Bannocks seemed very much alike—a poor set. The Cayuses were the most powerful, and the meanest. They were strapping big fellows, and rich. I was told by Hudson's Bay men that they frequently had three or four packs of beaver skins to a tent. That was money. Each pack weighed ninety or one hundred pounds, and the skins were worth $4 or $5 a pound. Some of them had five hundred horses apiece part work horses; part riding or running horses. When I was among the Snakes I bought a white horse for a buffalo skin and a shirt. But in Grande Ronde I was stopped by a Cayuse chief, who said that the horse was his. I told him I bought it. He said it had been stolen. There was a man traveling with me; his name was Russell. Russell said I had better pay the Cayuse something. So I put down a buffalo robe, a shirt and a handkerchief, and said: 'You can take whichever you please these or the horse.' He took the things, and I took the horse.

"The Cayuses often came into the Willamette Valley to trade horses for cattle. They had some race horses that they would not sell for $500. They were not a large tribe, not able to muster over two hundred or three hundred fighting men at the farthest. They were well armed with guns, but even with bows and arrows could shoot a man through the heart at fifty yards. They were proud and cruel, and showed it in their faces. The Nez Perces had much better faces than the Cayuses. The Sioux did business on honor. If any of their tribe was mean or dissipated he was regarded as a clown; he was not respected.