Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/101



Elijah was the aggressor; but do not white witnesses in similar circumstances always agree to the guilt of the Indian?

It may as well be mentioned here that in the autumn of 1846, Peu-peu-mox-mox went again to California with a company of forty men, to demand justice for the killing of his son, their arrival on the frontier causing great con cern and excitement. Commodore Stockton coming up from Mon-terey to San Francisco, and a military company being sent to protect exposed points.

Peu-peu-mox-mox, whatever his intentions may have been in the outset, seeing that the country was now in the possession of Americans, and that both Americans and Spaniards were armed, declared that he only came to trade, and afterwards offered his services to Major Fremont to fight the Californians. The adventurers acquitted them selves well, and returned to Oregon with increased respect for the Americans as warriors, all their previous experience of them having been as peace men "women," they called the Oregon immigrants whom they insulted and robbed, because they offered no resistance to their annoyances on the road. Indeed, they had been warned that they must not judge the fighting qualities of the people of the United States by the prudent forbearance of men encumbered by families and herds; and no doubt this lesson was enforced by what they saw in California.

The provisional legislature created the office of superin-

the states in August, 1845, Dr. White spent several weeks in searching for a pass through the Cascade mountains, more favorable than the route by Mount Hood, which had been partially opened the previous year. In this unsuccessful expedi tion, fitted out at his own expense, he was accompanied by Batteus Du Guerre, Joseph Charles Saxton, Orus Brown, Moses Harris, John Edmunds, and two others ; and they examined the country from the Santiam to the head of the Wallamet valley without finding what they sought ; named Spencer s butte, after the then late secretary of war, John C. Spencer ; and explored the Siuslaw river to its mouth. White was no coward. He returned to the states with only Harris, Du Guerre, Saxton, Brown, Chapman, and two or three others, although traveling this route was becoming more dangerous every year. Harris deserted at Des Chutes river, remaining in Oregon. About the last of October the party was captured by the Pawnees ana robbed, White being beaten into unconsciousness, but rescued through the favor of a chief. He finally reached Washington, delivering his messages, settling his accounts, and retir ing to his home near Ithaca, removing some years afterwards to Ca