Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/45

 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 37 A main traveled road passed through the reservation from the Umatilla landing on the Columbia River, over the Blue Mountains to the Grande Ronde Valley the Old Immigrant Road. There was much travel upon it in the years when the Powder River and the former valley were being settled and the gold mines worked, and as there were no taverns on the road, people passing that way were compelled to camp and turn their teams upon the uncultivated grass lands of the reservation. This afforded an excellent opportunity for reck- less Indians to secrete the animals and return them for a finder's reward. To what exent this game was practiced could not be known, for in most instances the Indians were ignor- antly .regarded as benefactors working for fair wages, and no complaint was therefore carried to the agent. Only one instance of the kind came to my knowledge during the nine months of my agency. Yellow Hawk, a headman of the Cayuse tribe, was privy to secreting a span of horses turned out to graze by a teamster travelling to the Grande Ronde Valley. As usual, after a few hours' unsuccessful search, a reward of $5 was offered by the owner to the first Indian he met, a confederate waiting to be seen, and who galloped away, ostensibly to search for the missing animals, but really to get them from the thicket on the bank of the river wherein he had placed them. Two white men, riding that way, saw the horses tied within the copse and wondered as to the cause of it, until they saw the Indian leading them on the road, the way they were travelling. Soon meeting the owner, they apprized him of the facts, at which, very naturally, he became enraged and, as usual, threatened the whole Indian population. The In- dian came up with the horses and demanded the reward before delivery. The angry man refused compliance, and all parties came before me for a decision. There was no proof that the Indian had driven the horses away from where the owner had turned them loose, but there was no doubt that he had concealed them to obtain a reward. Hence there was no difficulty or delay in restoring the animals free of cost to the owner. To placate his wrath and mete out some sort of re-