Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/311

Rh would probably extend into an epic the length of Hiawatha, and which some American poet may yet turn into a new Evangeline.

Miss Macbeth writes: The Lo Lo trail was a very old one and was used before there were any whites in this country to help make it. It was over this that Lewis and Clark came into the We-ippe country. Later it was improved by the whites, and for a time was better than another, that they sometimes used, called the Elk City trail, which is also a very old one.

In olden times the buffalo country in Montana was the camping (and hunting) ground for all the tribes, far and near. There many battles were fought among each other, and those taken captive were made slaves to the victors. A Nez Perces woman, Wat-ku-ese, was taken captive by a tribe, who, while on their return to their own land, fought with still another tribe, and the Nez Perces woman was again captured, and carried farther and farther away; and it was while there, still a captive, she was the first Nez Perces to look upon a white face. We are inclined to think she must have been taken to a place near the Red River Settlement.

Some time afterwards, with her child upon her back, she made her escape, and along the way met with much kindness from the whites, whom she called "So-yap-po,or the crowned ones (because of the hat). Her child died, and she buried it by the way in the Flathead country. There she was fortunate in finding some of the Nez Perces, who brought her home, a poor, diseased woman. She had much to tell about the strange people with the white eyes, who had been so kind to her.

Later on this poor woman was with a great company