Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/328

 ovision had

been made for the subsistence of so many men, and Alden appointed George Dart, Edward Shell, L. A. Loomis. and Eichard Dugan a military commission to constitute a gen eral department of supply; and learning that the Indians were in force near Table Rock, planned an attack for the night of the eleventh. But the volunteers learning that the Indians were in the valley killing and burning, rushed away to the defense of their homes without waiting for orders, and for several days were scouring the country, divided into small bands, as before mentioned. Before they came together again, Sam offered battle, which Alden was compelled to decline. But having recovered his force he made a movement on the fifteenth to dislodge the In dians from their supposed hiding place in a canon five miles north of Table Rock, from which, however, they had departed before his arrival, firing the woods behind them to obliterate their trial.

It was not until the seventeenth that Lieutenant Eh r of the Yreka company, with a detachment of twenty-five men, discovered the enemy s camp on Evans creek, fifteen miles from Table Rock. Knowing that the main force had returned to Camp Stuart for supplies, Ely fell back to an open piece of ground crossed by creeks, whose banks were lined with thickets of willow, where he halted and sent a courier for reinforcements. But Sam, seeing his opportunity, advanced his warriors through the creek channels under cover of the wallows, and getting within range, killed two men at the first fire. The company retreated to a pine ridge a quarter of a mile distant, but the Indians soon flanked and surrounded them, and the fight lasted three and a half hours, during which four more men were killed and four wounded. At the end of this time Captain Goodall, with the remainder of the Yreka company, came up, and the Indians retreated. The killed in this skirmish were J. Shaw, Frank Perry, F. Keath, A. Douglas, A. C. Colburn, and L. Locktirg. The wounded were Lieutenant Ely, John Albin, James Carroll, and Z. Shultz.