Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/23

 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 15 Grande Ronde Valley, picking berries along the water courses, or hanging around the towns where they bartered their "ictas" for the white man's goods, or in case of a shortage of their legitimate earnings, engaged in predatory acts very annoying to their white neighbors. Aind this kind of life, at the time of which I write, and notwithstanding its uncertainties, was certainly romantic enough. Enlightened people with white skins will leave remunerative employment and the most sump- tuous apartments where every needful thing is at hand, and with a very meager outfit endure toil and travel in a hot day to enjoy a picnic in shady groves and by cool, purling brooks, and yet they wonder at the Indian families, ponies, papooses, cats and dogs that from early spring to late in the fall enjoy travel and a refreshing camp every day. Or is it supposable that only those of the superior race receive any pleasure from the beauties of Nature ? Likely none of the red race has sung in faultless numbers of the " pleasure in the pathless wood or the rapture on the lonely shore/' but that he is fully as sensuous is shown by his language and the tenacity with which he clings to his birthright, of mountain and valley, grove and stream. Our pioneer history shows that it is no child's play to fight him out of them and coop him up on a reservation where, at best, he dwindles to extinction from confinement, which should be sufficient evidence as to the pleasurable and healthful excitements of his primitive state. There are but two ways of keeping Indians upon a tract of country too small or ill fitted to furnish them a living by their ancestral modes; one is by force, and the other by en- ticement. At the Umatilla neither had been tried. Just enough of the latter had been done to bring them on a visit when other preferable sources of income were not in season. The salaried chiefs, three in number, and their families and dependents remained there most of the time, for they re- ceived more favors than could be given to others. This method of running an agency was quite aptly named by Mr. Montgomery "the subsidy plan." There were also tribal jealousies, which to some extent pre-