Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/458

440 fortification, which he named Fort Henrietta, in compliment to the wife of Major Haller, was a stockade one hundred feet square, built of large split timbers, with two bastions of round logs, and outside a stock corral enclosed with rails found on the ground.

One company, under Captain Connoyer, arrived at the fort on the twenty-seventh, and on the twenty-ninth Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly arrived with the companies of Captains A. V. Wilson and Charles Bennett, making in all a force of three hundred and fifty men. Taking the command, Kelly moved out towards Fort Walla Walla on the evening of the second of December, hoping to reach the fort and surprise the Indians before sunrise; but a heavy rain having come on and continued through the night, the troops were unavoidably delayed. They reached Fort Walla Walla late in the forenoon, only to find it pillaged, the interior defaced, and the robbers escaped.

On the morning of the fourth, Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly, with the main body of his force, but without baggage or rations, proceeded to and up the Touchet to the cañon, to if possible discover the location of the Indians, while Major Chinn was ordered to march to the mouth of the Touchet, with the baggage train, and await orders.

The division commanded by Kelly, on reaching the Touchet fifteen miles above its mouth, traveled up it a short distance, when a party of about seventy Indians was discovered advancing towards him. The volunteers galloped forward, and found it to be Peu-peu-mox-mox with a number of warriors, one of whom carried a flag of truce. A halt was called when within three hundred yards of the Indians; and Colonel Kelly, with Mr. Olney, the agent, an interpreter, and a few others, went forward to meet them.

The interview was opened by the chief asking why armed men had come into his country, and was answered by Colonel Kelly that they had come to chastise him and his people for wrongs they had done white people. Peu-peu-mox-mox then said that he did not wish to fight, and