Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/493

Rh Nachess with three companies and one mountain howitzer.

The history of Wright's operations, as given in his reports, shows a summer spent in trailing Indians from place to place, from fishery to fishery, and over mountains before thought impassable for troops, dragging after them their season's supplies, and accomplishing nothing but to collect the non-combatants of the disaffected tribes upon a reservation in Oregon, where they were secure from the turmoil of war, and at liberty to spy on either side. On the trail over the mountains to the Klickitat country and returning, Wright marched one hundred and eighty miles. While there he made the acquaintance of the old chief Nikatani, who, at his request, visited him at the camp on the Ahtanahm, and there related to him the part taken by Kamiakin in the cascades affair.

According to Nikatani, Kamiakin had sent a party of thirty Yakimas to Camas lake in his country to command the young men of the Klickitats to proceed to the cascades and endeavor to gain over the Cascade Indians to his project, which was to watch for a time when both steamboats were at that place, burn them, thus cutting off escape or assistance, and make a simultaneous attack on the whole line, killing all the white inhabitants, and holding the place until Kamiakin should arrive with a large force for further operations. Twenty Klickitats were induced to join the Yakimas, and these fifty held secret meetings with the Cascade Indians, gaining over their chiefs, and making the attack, with the result already known.

Nikatani declared that his people had long been under the tyranny of Kamiakin, who took away their horses and their women. The Cascade Indians, as a tribe, had not been guilty, but the chiefs, Chenoweth and Banahi, had fired their own houses to make it appear that they had been attacked, and with a minority of their people had led the onslaught on the white residents.

From the time when Governor Stevens had returned to his capital to about the middle of April he had been