Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/294

276 the enemy, killing eleven Indians and wounding others. But Captain Stuart, who was engaged in a personal contest with a large Indian, whom he finally laid prostrate, was shot through the kidneys by an arrow aimed by his fallen foe, and died the following day. Captain Peck and one of the troopers were wounded in the skirmish, which was all the loss sustained by Kearney's command. The detachment fell back, crossing the river near the mouth of a stream coming in from the south, where camp was made, and where the brave young Captain Stuart died, lamenting that it had not been his fate to have fallen in battle in Mexico and not in the wilderness by the hand of a savage. Here he was buried and the earth above him so trodden that his grave could not be discovered. From this incident in Oregon's early history Stuart creek received its name.

The Indians had fallen back to their natural fortification at Table Rock, which is a flat-topped promontory overhanging Rogue river, from which observations could be taken of the whole valley, and any approach signaled. Finding that his force was too small to attack this position, Kearney remained in camp several days, waiting for a detachment in his rear with Lieutenants Williamson and Irvine to come up, and the arrival of volunteer companies being hastily formed in the mines.

The news of the outbreak had sped as fast as horsemen could carry it to Oregon City. But Governor Gaines was powerless to send an army into the field, no provision having been made by the territorial legislature for the organization of the militia. Pie could only write to the president that troops were needed in Oregon, where Oregon's delegate had declared they were not needed. Having discharged this duty, he set out for the seat of war without even a military escort. At Applegate's place in the Umpqua valley he endeavored to raise a company which might act as escort and join the force in the field, but found that most of the men able to bear arms already gone, and was