Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/150

140 miles distant from the post, to make observations. Accompanied by Lieutenant Kapus, regimental adjutant of the Washington Territory Infantry, he entered a lodge where fifty-three chiefs and sub-chiefs were deliberating on the propositions of the commissioners. Says Currey in his report:

"The debate ran with dignified firmness and warmth until near morning, when the Big Thunder party made a formal announcement of their determination to take no further part in the treaty, and then with a warm, and in an emotional manner, declared the Nez Perce nation dissolved; whereupon the Big Thunder men shook hands with the Lawyer men, telling them with a kind but firm demeanor that they would be friends, but a distinct people. It did not appear from the tone of their short, sententious speeches, that either party was meditating present outbreak. I withdrew my detachment, having accomplished nothing but witnessing the extinguishment of the last council fires of the most powerful Indian nation on the sunset side of the Rocky Mountains." The "treaty" was really no more than the agreement of Lawyer and his band, numbering less than a third of the Nez Perce people.

While the council of the commissioners and chiefs was in progress, word was brought that a band of renegades from the Yakimas, Palouse, and Nez Perces was encamped three miles from the council ground, with the purpose of stirring up discord and causing the rejection of the treaty. Captains Drake and Currey a with detachments of Companies D and E, were ordered to proceed by night, surround their camp, and at daylight put them across Clearwater River with the admonition to remain away or take the consequences. This being accomplished, complaint being made that two white men had erected a house on, and laid claim to a portion of the reservation