Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/70

52 spring, when a final adjustment would be made if a majority of the principal men could be brought together by the tenth of April. The Cayuses were then left to their reflections.

At The Dalles, on returning, White held a four days' meeting with the Indians of Mr. Perkins mission, whom he found in a state of great excitement, all kinds of rumors being afloat among them of the intentions of the sub-agent towards them, and having a well-founded conviction that individually and collectively they had broken, and should continue to break the white men's laws. But at the end of the four days they were persuaded to accept the code, and in the winter H. B. Brewer, farmer of The Dalles mission, reported them living up to the regulations, and cutting logs for houses. "For the least transgression of the laws," wrote Brewer, "they are punished by their chiefs immediately. The clean faces of some, and the tidy dresses of others, show the good effects of your visit."

White had hardly reached the Wallamet before he was called to Astoria to settle a difficulty created by a deserting sailor from some vessel in the Columbia, who had instigated the Indians to threaten the life of one of the missionaries at Clatsop. The man was arrested, and the matter settled by the Hudson's Bay Company allowing him to be sent out of the country in charge of one of their trading parties.

Thus passed the winter of 1842-3, when in the spring a fresh agitation disturbed the American colonists. Whether justly or unjustly, Baptiste Dorion, son of that Madam Dorion, celebrated in Irving's Astoria for her courage and endurance in crossing the mountains and plains with Hunt s party, was charged with being the incendiary spirit who influenced the minds of the Indians with tales of the intended seizure of their country by people from the United States.

It seems that Dorion, who acted as one of White's interpreters, remained in the upper country, and it may have