Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/381

 THE GUN POWDER STORY 373 pressed himself sorry for what had happened, saying that it was a great disgrace for a chief's son to be thrashed. I ex- plained to him that if my young man had got the worst of the fight I would think nothing of it & that they were both of > them to blame; to this he said nothing but remained in the Fort all night alone attended by an Indian boy. Next morn- ing he said he would send for the father, sent his boy accord- ingly. To my surprise he came to me saying, "My brother- in-law knows I am a peace maker & he will not come" (at this time they were not in speaking terms). Shortly the Five Crows went off saying that he might see his brother Tawato, head chief of the Cayuses, & would give my version of the story. At noon the same day, Tawato came to the Fort accom- panied by Elijah, an elder Brother of the young man who got a thrashing, & a young man who had received a considerable smattering of English, reading & writing at the Methodist In- stitute at the Willamette. They were both cleanly dressed fully armed with guns, pistols & swords. This was in my opinion carried more for show than for violence. After being seated for some time without saying a word Tawato made known the object of his visit; it was if there was not a pos- sibility of our coming to some arrangement of settling the difficulty. After explaining my case, he proposed to send for the father. The father accordingly came, accompanied at last by five or six hundred Indians, if I remember rightly they were not all armed. They filled the house, every nook & crany of the fort yard crowded outside of the windows. Every avail- able space was occupied by them. After Peo Peo Mox-Mox came in he & I agreed to explain our case to Tawato and to cut a long yarn short, Peo-Peo Mox-Mox told me he had noth- ing particular against me personally, but that I must send Mr. Todd out of the country immediately. I replied I would do nothing of the kind, that Todd had been sent to me by The White Head (McLoughlin) as my assistant, that he had not committed a fault, that I would not discharge him, that they had strength enough to kill us but our lives would be re-