Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/245

 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 237 justice. On the other hand, he was a plain, unpretentious, practical and honest man, strong in the conviction that all people show their best traits when well treated and that the world is big enough to give all a fair chance for improvement. He was strong in body, delighted in adventure, and the rough and ready work of an Indian superintendent in early times was well suited to his nature. Those who crossed the plains with him in the year 1845 and 1847 considered him an ideal leader, and the Indians whom he conducted to their reserva- tions gave him the name of ' ' Skookum-tum-tum, ' ' the Chinook word for "strong heart." The task he performed in bringing the tribes of Southern Oregon to the Siletz reservation was a very trying one. Only those who know the obstacles presented by the Coast Mountains in the rainy season, can truly estimate the undertaking at its true value. Wagons loaded with the Indians' effects and children too young to walk, were hauled by oxen over mountains never before passed by teams and so thickly covered with brush and fallen timber that every rod of the way had to be hewed out before a wagon could pass. But though numerous mountain streams in flood had to be forded or bridged and every bush gave a shower of rain after the clouds had ceased to pour, Palmer was in his element and the principal source of energy. He never met with failure except when he ran for Governor. Then came an opportunity for those of his fellow citizens who thought him too kind to the Indian, to register their disapproval. They were short- sighted and failed to see that the work he performed was for the general good and especially to protect white people from the forays of lurking savages. Many of the citizens of the Willamette Valley, which con- tained at that time by far the larger portion of Oregon's white inhabitants, strenuously objected to establishing Indian reser- vations at the Siletz, Alsea and Grande Ronde, places almost in contact with their homes, but Palmer was unyielding, and time has abundantly vindicated the wisdom of his selections that is, if the Indian is to be tolerated in his desire for a temporal existence at all. Palmer was never arrogant, and