Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/246

236 arrayed against them and their owners, feelings of prejudice not justified by ultimate results, and added bitterness to these separate lines of pastoral industries until in some localities slaughter of sheep, and even murder of herders, occurred which could not be punished under legal forms at the time and place of the action, because unbiased juries could not be formed.

The writer speaks here from personal knowledge gathered from the herders in their camps just as the Piute raiders arrived near Pilot Rock. Knowing the defenseless condition of the Rock Creek settlers at the time the trouble with Joseph's band arose in the Wallowa country, I secured twenty stand of needle guns from Governor Chadwick, for the Rock Creek settlement, and took charge of six repeating rifles to forward to sons and friends of Wm. J. Herren at Heppner, and leaving Salem on the night of the Fourth of July, on which date General Howard's order appeared in The Oregonian, to the effect that the raiders would leave the Blue Mountains and cross the Columbia River between the mouth of the John Day and Walla Walla. Having sons and other kinsmen in that country, I got among the herders in the Blue Mountains on July 8, twenty miles southeast of Heppner, near Burton's sheep camp, where Frank Maddock arrested a party of Umatilla Indians, and was giving the aid of ammunition and the comfort of my company at the very time the soldiers were throwing shells from Pilot Rock into the position they supposed the Indians to occupy. I reached Heppner that day and found the citizens had a rude fort completed and were awaiting the arrival of Thomas Ayers, who had been sent to Umatilla Landing for arms, but he returned that day with the report of failure, as the community had received one hundred guns when Joseph's raid occurred. Next day at noon I met Messrs. Laing and Varney, heavily armed, on their way to learn the