Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/121

 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 113 noted for strength, activity and endurance; but in him the distinctively animal did not stand out so obtrusively as in the so-called typical Indian. Though not deficient in courage, he was no war chief. The kindly qualities of human nature were in the ascendant. No one could see his regular and well- formed features, his kind and intelligent eye, his tall and symmetrical figure, showing the deliberative gentleman in every movement, and hear his mild and persuasive voice, with- out being impressed with the possibilities, too generally doubted and denied to the red man. I first met him in August, 1851, when he piloted us on a new road across the Blue Moun- tains, and my father said then, "There is a good man without regard to color or accident of birth." In March, our daughter, about six years old, was taken with measles and successfully treated according to the hydropathic system of practice. By the time she had recovered my wife was taken and passed safely through by the same method. In neither case was the agency doctor called, a circumstance which challenged the attention of all those who had children to be saved, and a deputation of Cayuses, headed by Howlish Wampo, came to ascertain our manner of treatment. During my wife's sickness, two Indian women, Susan McKay and Wash Mary, had assisted me in watching and nursing, and calling them to her aid, my wife went to the wigwam of Yellow Hawk and treated his twin boys successfully. After that, the two Indian women saved all of whom anything was known. Whether this lesson bore permanent fruit, I cannot say, and, if not, the Indians are not peculiarly inapt or unretentive, for white people allow such practical demonstrations to escape them. In this connection I might mention that when my wife left the agency in the latter part of April there was such a scene as I never witnessed under similar circumstances in any civilized community. Her so-called barbarian acquaintances of both sexes assembled to bid her good-bye and their expres- sions of sorrow by tears and lamentations affected her most deeply. Talk of Indians being stoical; such terms do not