Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/168

158 It was now certain that the marauding bands which gave so much trouble to settlers, miners, teamsters, emigrants, and other travelers, enjoyed a safe retreat in the mountains of Southeastern Oregon. Hoping to find their winter quarters, at 3 o'clock on the following morning Waymire with fifteen cavalrymen, and Miller with thirty-two citizens, set out to discover this resort. A large smoke being observed about three miles distant, Waymire dispatched Sergeant Casteel with privates Cyrus R. Ingraham, John Himbert, Company D, and George N. Jaquith, a citizen acting under his command, to reconnoiter the position and return as soon as possible to the command. At 7 o'clock in the morning, the citizen company being in advance, mistook a flock of geese on the plain two miles below for a band of horses, and made a charge which exhausted their riding animals, making them unfit for efficient service during the day. (This was the effect of the mirage referred to in the report of Colonel Currey as magnifying and distorting objects reflected in its atmosphere).

On the divide between the valley of Dry Lake and Alvord Valley Lieutenant Waymire requested Captain Miller to send a scouting party forward, as he was apprehensive of falling into an ambuscade. Miller took five men and moving half a mile to the front, on seeing an Indian on the hills to his right, sent three of them in pursuit, and moved on with the other two. Impatient at this, Waymire resumed his march, but hearing the report of a rifle in the direction Miller had taken, directed his course accordingly. Proceeding but a short distance, he discovered a body of Indians filing down a gulch on the side of the mountain west of the narrow plain he was traversing, and at once took position with his cavalry, reduced by the absence of Casteel's scouting party to eleven men, upon a ridge near the defile.