Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/451

Rh he had taken passage, by which she was very nearly lost. He was anxious, he said, to establish a post at Walla Walla, "in order to prevent a war against the Walla Wallas by the troops of Governor Curry;" but that an inspection of the government troops and animals discovered the men to be without proper clothing, and the animals, owing to the previous expeditions of Haller and Rains, unfit for service. Still he would have taken possession of the Walla Walla country before winter set in, and directed the chief quartermaster to procure, if possible, the means of transportation; but this could not be obtained without great expense and delay, owing to the country having been drained of resources by the requisitions of Governor Curry, which compelled him to bring wagons, horses, mules, boats, and forage from California. Before they could arrive the Columbia river was closed by ice, and communication with the country east of the mountains cut off, while he was himself ice-bound at Vancouver for three weeks, during which he was unable to communicate either with The Dalles or San Francisco.

No reference was made to the fact that Governor Stevens with a small party was in the Blackfoot or Cœur d'Alene country, unable, presumably, to come through the hostile tribes who were determined upon cutting him off; nor to the fact that acting Governor Mason had intimated to the military authorities at Vancouver that he desired them to do something for the relief of Stevens, and had at last caused to be raised a company for this purpose, which was commanded by special Indian agent B. F. Shaw, successor to the murdered Bolan. But a single company of fifty men could not go through the hostile countries, and there were other reasons for the action of Governor Curry which the general ignored. Wool, against the earnest protest of Rains, disbanded the company raised for the relief of Stevens, and mustered into the service of the United States, sending a courier to the Blackfoot country to advise Stevens to return to Washington territory by the way of New York and the Isthmus of Panama!