Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/488

470 also caused to be arrested Chenoweth, chief of the Cascade tribe, and eight others of that band, who were found to have been implicated in the murders. Half a dozen guilty ones had gone with the Yakimas, who could not be taken.

The arrested Indians had a fair trial, Chenoweth being the first to suffer for his crime. Being convicted, he endeavored to buy his life; offering ten horses, two Indian women, and other property, to each of the officers of the court to let him go free. His offer being refused, he made another request—not to be buried in the ground—his people depositing their dead in deadhouses, or in canoes elevated on posts high above the ground. He was quash (afraid) he said of the grave in the ground. However, when he came to die, he did so with the indifference of the savage. On the scaffold he gave the war whoop. The rope not working perfectly, he hung for a moment able to mutter, "wake nika quash copa memelose" (I am not afraid of the dead), and was finally shot to end the painful scene. The other murderers were hung within three days after Chenoweth, and a few prisoners were sent to Vancouver. Wright issued orders that all Cascade Indians found off the island set apart for them should be shot at sight.

The cascades affair was severely commented on by territorial authorities, and not without reason. General Wool had been keen to scent out and point out to the war department any errors committed or expenses incurred by the military organizations of Oregon and Washington; even to mentioning the unavoidable loss of horses by the volunteers in the Indian country through the severity of the weather; and the reported capture of a train of thirteen wagons, guarded by only four men, by the Indians between Umatilla and Walla Walla, the report being wholly without foundation in fact. Said Colonel Cornelius in reply: "During the whole period of the war the Indians have not succeeded in capturing a single article