Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/469

Rh Looking Glass, and who overheard him unraveling his plot to the Spokanes, and counseling them to treachery. "I never communicated," says Stevens, "to Looking Glass my knowledge of his plans, but knowing them I knew how to meet them in council. I also knew how to meet them in his own country, and it gave me no difficulty." The incident, however, proved that this Nez Percé chief was no more sincere in signing the treaty of Walla Walla than Peu-peu-mox-mox or Kamiakin, but that it had been signed by these three at least only to gain time to prepare for war.

What so difficult as to learn the mind of an Indian? The Spokanes offered Stevens an escort through the country of "the hostile Nez Percés," but he judged it best to decline, because he did not wish to place himself under obligations to them, as well as because he did wish to prevent opportunities for collusion between the two nations, and also to secure the alliance of the Nez Percés, who held the balance of power.

Dispatching Craig with a part of the Nez Percé delegation to Lapwai, to arrange in advance for a council and to engage an escort to The Dalles, he enlarged his party by recruits of twenty miners and others waiting to get through the warring tribes, forming a battalion which he called the "Stevens Guards and Spokane Invincibles," consisting of fifty men, all told. Procuring the best horses in the country, reducing every pack to eighty pounds, that he might fight or fly, as occasion required, he began his march to meet, for ought he knew, the whole force of the hostile combination.

The weather was foul, with rain and snow, but a forced march of four days brought him to Lapwai, where the Nez Percés, whom Craig had assembled, were awaiting him ready for council. This was progressing favorably under the wonderful influence of his personality, when an express arrived from Walla Walla with the particulars of four days' battle, and the death of Peu-peu-mox-mox.