Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/303



The Nez Perces have been the romantic tribe of the Columbia River Valley, and have ever been performing startling deeds; and have, moreover, been, with but one exception, and that involving but one band of the people, the steadfast friends of the white peoples, and particularly of the Americans. Without their friendship, and their most signal assistance at more than one crisis, the history of Oregon would have at least been quite different; and possibly the valley of the Columbia would have been British rather than American territory—the government at Washington, fifty years ago or more perhaps, being unwilling to pay the price that would have been involved in an Indian war if the thousand Nez Perces fighters had taken the side of the Cayuses in 1848, or of Kamiakin in 1855. A recent valuable contribution to the services of these Nez Perces is found in the very interesting life of Gen. I. I. Stevens, by his son Hazard Stevens, containing an account of the great council at Walla Walla but a short time before the general Indian war, at which some two thousand Indian warriors were present, and the Cayuses and Yakimas made a secret agreement to massacre Governor Stevens and all his party. But the plot was discovered by Lawyer, the Nez Perces chief, and word was circulated by him that the Americans were under his protection, which was effectual, as Lawyer's force numbered at least half the whole aggregation of Indians.