Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/370

 360 JOURNAL AND LETTERS OF DAVID DOUGLAS. sufficiently his wrath, he seized the poor man of lan- guage, and tore off a handful of his long jet hair by the roots. On being remonstrated with for this violence, the Indian set off in a rage and summoned his followers, sev- enty-three in party, who came all armed, each with his gun cocked, and the arrow on the bowstring. As, how- ever, every individual of our camp had done all that was possible to accommodate matters, we took things coolly, and apparently careless of the result, stood, thirty-one in number, to our arms, and asked if they wished for war? They said "No ; we only want the interpreter to kill him, and, as he is no chief, this could not signify to us." But our reply was, that whether chief or not, each individual- in our camp, though he were only an Indian, was entitled to our protection ; and if they offered to molest him, they should see whether we had ever been in war before or not. The coolness, which we took care to show by our counte- nances as much as in our speech, had the desired effect, and they earnestly begged for the peace which we were certainly quite as glad to grant. Many speeches were made on the occasion, and, to judge by the gestures of these children of nature, and the effect which their ha- rangues produce, some of them must possess oratorical powers of no mean description. The affair ended, as usual, by an interchange of presents. Still, though friend- ship was restored, it would have been highly imprudent to venture myself away from the camp, and I spent the time, till the 31st of July, in arranging and securing what I had already collected, when I parted with Mr. McDonald, who descended the Columbia, and accompany ing Mr. Wark and two men, departed overland in a northeasterly [west- erly?] direction, towards Kettle Falls, on the Columbia, and reached the Spokan River on Thursday, the 3d of August, where I was kindly welcomed at the old establishment by my former host, Mr. Finlay. The next day I left him for