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twelfth on the east side of Mount Reuben. Some Indian signs dis covered during the day. The company moved over Whisky creek and camped that night on Mount Wilkinson. More Indian signs discovered during the day. Captain Barnes, with a portion of his spies, together with one man of Captain Robertson s detachment, set out after supper over the mountain for the purpose of examining the meadows and the bar on Rogue river for the Indians. Soon after dark it commenced raining and snowing, and by the morning of the fourteenth the snow was four inches deep on the mountain where the spies were, and a dense fog hung on the meadows and the bar. The snow continued to fall on the mountain ; so much so that Captain Barnes considered it at that time not practicable to attempt to reconnoiter the meadows and bar, and returned to camp about nine o clock A. M. Captain Barnes and myself were still anxious that the meadows and bar should be examined, and with eight of his spies and two of Captain Robertson s company, I set out down Rogue river to the meadows. At the same time I ordered the remainder of the company back across Whisky creek, and we proceeded down the river across the base of Mount Wilkinson, about six miles to a high point that ran down to the river bank and overlooked the whole country down to near the meadows, the meadows being obscured from view by another point of the moun tain also running down to near the meadows. The party now being very much fatigued from the hard travel over a rough country, Captain Barnes suggested the propriety of his taking four men and going forward, and examining the bar and meadows. I remained behind with the six men, and watched his movements, so that in the event of the enemy discovering his movements and attempting to cut him off, I could bring the men left with me to their assist ance. As soon as Captain Barnes came out on the high ground a signal gun was fired on the other side of the river near the bar. It was now late in the morning, and frequently a storm of snow swept by them ; and finding that they were discovered, he, with his men, returned to me, when, being out of provisions, we abandoned the examination in that quarter and returned to camp. We made the hardest marches in this expedition of any I have been in since I joined the army.

As late as the fifteenth of April the weather was still cold, with rain and snowfalls of considerable depth on the mountains. But Lainerick and Kelsey had determined upon concentrating the regiment at or near the main camp of the Indians at Big Meadows, apd attacking them in force. The murder and mutilation of McDonald Hark- ness, about the twenty-fifth, two miles from the meadows,