Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/467

Rh at any hazard. He was two days' travel west of Fort Benton when the news met him, where he encamped his men, while special agent Doty returned to the fort for a large supply of ammunition, arms, and horses; and he, with only one trusty young man and a Delaware Indian interpreter, rode express to the Bitter-root valley to confer with Agent R. H. Lansdale in charge of the Flatheads. At Fort Owen, on the Bitter Root, he overtook the Nez Percé delegation, which was traveling in advance of him, and whom he found to be informed of the war in the Yakima country, and also that the Cayuses and a portion of their own people were disaffected.

However, with that masterful will and consummate tact of which he was possessed, he won over the whole party of fourteen, including the war-chiefs Looking Glass, Three Feathers, and Spotted Eagle, who promised their friendly services, and to join his escort as a part of it, offering if he should take the trail through the Nez Percé country, to send a sufficient party of young men to escort him in safety to The Dalles.

On the eleventh of November, at Hell Gate pass, he was joined by Doty with the extra horses and supplies. On the twentieth he crossed the Bitter-root mountains in three feet of snow, the horses being one night without grass. He had no means of knowing the temper of the Cœur d'Alenes towards him; but deeming it best to appear unconscious of danger, when within twenty-five miles of the Cœur d'Alene mission, again traveled in advance with Pearson, Craig, and four of the Nez Percés, throwing himself into the midst of the Indians, and "with rifles in one hand, and our arms outstretched on the other side, tendered them both the sword and the olive branch." He had instructed the Nez Percés to entertain the Cœur d'Alenes with a narrative of what they had seen at the Blackfoot council, and to convince them of the advantages of the treaty, which would relieve them in the future of the depredations to which they had been subject in the past, from this predatory people.