Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/378

 band, fully armed, to the Indian camp. Here his mes, with drawn bayonets, surrounded the first tepee to keep the Indians at bay while McKenzie and an assistant searched the place, cutting and ripping open everything that might be supposed to contain the stolen property. After five or sis lodges had been searched in this manner with some success, the Indians called a truce and soon agreed to return the goods in order to save the rest of the camp. In this manner most of the articles were recovered, but the incident left the Indians decidedly unfriendly.

McKenzie had expected to buy enough horses from the Indians for his pack train and for the winter supply of meat. Now the Indians refused to sell their horses, even at advanced prices, hoping to starve the whites into leaving the country. However, McKenzie was not the man to see his men go hungry with an abundance of food at hand. Under his directions, the hunters stalked the horse herds on the nearby grazing lands, shooting the fatter for camp use. Although the hunters always left a bundle of trade goods in payment for the animals thus killed, the Indians did not care for the arrangement. Not only had they been outwitted, but they were losing many of their best saddle ponies. They decided to end the matter by attacking the camp and laid their plans accordingly. McKenzie got wind of the matter and moved his forces to a nearby island in the river, from which his hunters continued their forays on the herds until the Indians, in desperation, called a truce and agreed to supply the whites with horses at the established price. In this way McKenzie was able to secure all the horses he needed for his own camp, and an additional eighty which he sent to Clarke at Spokane. Late in May McKenzie, again on friendly terms with the Indians, broke camp and joined the other trading parties at the mouth of the Walla Walla on the first of June, 1813.

Regarding the location of this winter camp Irving states: "Mr. McKenzie navigated for several days up the south branch of the Columbia ... commonly called Lewis River ... Having arrived at the mouth of the Shahaptan, he ascended some dis-