Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/153

Rh left by the broken pot-holes vary in diameters from one inch to five feet."

On the fourth day of Currey's scout in this region he came upon a camp, recently abandoned, in which the camp fires were still burning, and pushing on overtook this band of a dozen tepees, located on the river bottom almost beneath the feet of the pursuing troop. Every chance of escape being cut off, the chief displayed all his people unarmed, with their hands held up. "Although," says the chronicler, "we had then trailed the party for four days, one day without rations, I could not consent to fire upon an unarmed and supplicating foe," and only laid them under contribution for a supply of salmon, though he carried off their chief to receive the judgment of his superior. Two hundred miles of hard traveling had resulted in the capture of one Indian.

The command proceeded to the Port Neuf, six miles from Fort Hall, remaining until the last of the immigration had passed, when it began its homeward march. At Salmon Falls Creek it remained long enough to gather in the Indians pretending friendship to inform them of the determination henceforth to let no outrages upon white people pass unpunished. It was expected that this message would be communicated by these friendlies to the hostile members of the tribe, as no doubt it was. The effect of this pacification, however, would be to warn the hostiles to keep out of the way, while the unarmed and old peace men displayed their submission to the soldiers by holding up empty hands.

While in camp at this place Currey was ordered to make another scout across the desert that lay between Snake River and the Goose Creek Range [Seven Peaks?] to the southwest. With twenty men and ten days' rations the expedition set out. A four days' march brought it, through sagebrush and lava ridges, to Salmon Falls