Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/463

Rh During all this time the prisoners were exceedingly restless and excited. Peu-peu-mox-mox in stentorian tones cheered on his braves, receiving responses at short intervals. When the sergeant of the guard had an opportunity to speak to Colonel Kelly, as he passed from one wing of the regiment to the other, he expressed a fear that they would escape while the men were in the field. Just at this moment Frank Crabtree came in from the field, his shoulder shattered, and arm dangling by his side, and reported Captain Lay ton with five or six others surrounded on the hills at the front; and the colonel's reply to the sergeant's question of what he should do in a certain case, was that the men were all needed at the front; to tie his prisoners, and if they resisted or attempted to escape, to kill them. They did resist the order to bind them, and Sergeant-Major Isaac Miller was wounded in the arm by a knife concealed about the person of one of them. Peu-peu-mox-mox also attempted to seize the gun of another of the guard, name Warfield, who struck him with it upon the back of the head, felling him to the ground, when he was quickly dispatched. The other prisoners attempting flight were shot, with the exception of one Nez Percé, a mere lad, who made no resistance, and was not harmed.

Concerning the killing of the Walla Walla chief, about which much was said at that time, and later, Colonel Kelly wrote to Governor Curry: "I regretted the necessity of putting these men to death, as I was in hopes that they could have been made useful in prosecuting the war against the other hostile tribes; but I am well satisfied that the guard was fully justified in taking away their lives in their efforts to escape."

Whatever Colonel Kelly may have hoped from the subjugation of the Walla Walla chief was probably accomplished by his death, which, under the circumstances, was evidently unavoidable. There was, however, a scandal created in military circles by the uncivilized and unjustifiable mutilation of the body of Peu-peu-mox-mox by the