Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/151

Rh lands, Captain Currey took his company twelve miles down the river to the squatters' cabin, which his men demolished and threw into the river. In this impartial manner military government maintained something like order over a wild and lawless region.

On the thirteenth of June Maury's expedition left Lapwai for the Snake-river country. This part of Currey's report is very interesting from his descriptions of regions that had not been frequented by white men since the furhunting companies had roamed over them. The command passed up Lapwai Creek, and from Craig's Mountain traveled through broken ridges to Salmon River where a ferry enabled them to cross the train of a hundred and fifty pack mules without swimming. In crossing the high ridge between the Salmon and Snake rivers, however, several of these animals lost their footing, and were precipitated down the rock-ribbed mountain sides. In this manner the command passed several days, resting one day at the head of Little Salmon; passing over another ridge to the head of Payette River, where it again rested, while a detachment under Currey proceeded southward to the headwaters of Weiser River to look for signs of Snake River Indians, finding only a deserted camp.

According to Currey, on the head of Payette River are located the most beautiful valleys of Idaho, the mountains that wall them in being covered with pine and tamarack trees, and the prairies verdant with nutritious grasses and clover, watered with trout streams. This region, he says, was in former times the debatable land between the Snakes and Nez Perces, where once a three days battle was fought for its possession and the Snakes driven off, until more settled habits had been adopted by the Nez Perces, when it relapsed to its ancient claimants. At the period of his visit he was convinced it had for