Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/69

Rh Tauitowe (sometimes called the young chief), head man of the Cayuses on the Umatilla, and brother of Five Crows; and Feather Cap, belonging to Tiloukaikt s camp at Waiilatpu, with a few other chiefs from the three principal Cayuse camps, the third of which was half way be tween the two just mentioned, and governed by Camaspelo. It was at once evident that much disaffection existed here, which it would be difficult to cure, and White put forward Rogers and McKay as better informed how to deal with it than he. "They had not proceeded far," says White in his report, "before Feather Cap, for the first time in his life, so far as we know, commenced weeping, and wished to see me; said his heart was sick, and he could not live long as he now felt." The cause of Feather Cap s tears was the knowledge of his own guilt, the information that the Nez Percés had accepted the laws, and the fear that the Cayuses would do the same, when he would be in a bad case. Tauitowe had at first no tears to shed, and he had some charges to bring against the white race,—three-fourths of whom, he said, though teaching the purest doctrines, were in practice bad men,—an opinion founded upon what he had observed among mountain men when he had been on the buffalo hunt. He was shown that such examples did not apply in the present instance, and finally admitted it, and in a speech in which he related his troubles as high chief, wept freely. He had flogged his young men, and reproved the middle-aged, until having none to sustain him, his popularity had so declined he was "left alone to say his payers and go to bed to weep over the follies and wickedness of his people."

When Rogers and McKay had aroused the chiefs to remorse, they were sent to Dr. White, who magnanimously promised to refrain from punishing any but the actually guilty. The settlement of the count against them—the offense against Mrs. Whitman and the destruction of Dr. Whitman s property, was allowed to stand over until