Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/137



Peu-peu-mox mox declined to say anything, except that he found the Americans changeable, but approved of giv ing up the captives. It has been told upon as good au thority as Dr. W. F. Tolmie of the Hudson's Bay Company, that when a messeuger from Waiilatpu brought the news of the massacre to the chief of the Walla Wallas, he was asked what part he had taken in the bloody business, and having answered that he had killed certain persons, Peu- peu-mox-mox had ordered him hanged to the nearest tree.

This anecdote would seem to receive confirmation from a postscript to a letter written by Mr. McBean of Fort Walla Walla, on the day after the massacre, in which he says he has "just learned that the Cayuses are to be here tomor row to kill Serpent Jaune, 17 the Walla Walla chief." An other anecdote told by J. L. Parrish, concerning Peu-peu- mox-mox, relates that when the Cayuses proposed going to war, he warned them not to judge the Americans fight ing qualities by what they had seen of the immigrants, for he had witnessed their fighting in California, where every American was a man; from all of which it appears that this chief at least, was not implicated in the killing of the Americans in the Cayuse country. Whatever he thought about the instability of the white people, he had learned to fear them. His own instability he displayed at a later period.

The ransom offered the Cayuses was fifty-three point blankets, fifty shirts, ten guns, ten fathoms of tobacco, ten handkerchiefs, and one hundred balls and powder. The Nez Percé chiefs who had not yet returned home from the council on the Umatilla, promised to release Mr. Spalding and the Americans with him for twelve blankets, twelve shirts, twelve handkerchiefs, five fathoms of tobacco, two guns, two hundred balls and powder, and some knives. 18

Ogden wrote to Mr. Spalding, by the returning chiefs,

17 Serpent Jaune, or Yellow Serpent, was the French name for Peu-peu-mox-mox.

18 This is the amount, stated by Brouillet, who was present. The Oregon Spectator of January twentieth makes it double that amount of ammunition, with twelve niuts and thirty-seven pounds of tobacco.