Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/274

226 to have had no adequate conception of the vigour and resources of the Indians.

As before, the Nez Percés were the faithful friends of the whites. Timothy, a Nez Percé chief living on Snake River at the mouth of the Alpowa, put them across the wicked stream, then running high with the May freshet, and went on with them as guide.

On May 16, 1858, the force reached a point near four lakes, probably the group of which Silver Lake and Medical Lake are the chief ones, a few miles west of Spokane. Here was gathered a formidable array, Spokanes, Pend Oreilles, Cœur d'Alenes, Okanogans, and Colvilles, the hosts of the upper country. Steptoe was soldier enough to perceive that it was time for caution, and he halted for a parley. Saltese, a brawny chief of the Cœur d'Alenes, declared to him that the Indians were ready to dispute his farther progress, but that if the white men would retire the Indians would not molest them. A friendly Nez Percé, seeing the duplicity of Saltese, struck his mouth, exclaiming, "You speak with a double tongue."

The force turned back and that night all seemed well. But at nine o'clock the next morning, while the soldiers were descending a cañon to Pine Creek, near the present site of Rosalia, a large force of Indians burst upon them like a cyclone. As the battle began to wax hot, the terrible consequences of the error of lack of ammunition began to become manifest. Man after man had to cease firing. Captain O. H. P. Taylor and Lieutenant Gaston commanded the rear-guard. With extraordinary skill and devotion they held the line intact and foiled the efforts