Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/97

 ON, Sect.

taken by a member of any allied tribe they were bound to give it up, they considered any property captured from a common enemy as belonging to the captors; and hence that the horses taken by them from robbers, at the hazard of their lives, belonged thenceforth to them.

To this reasoning the Spaniards were deaf, but offered to compromise by allowing ten cows for the horses, and finally fifteen, to all of which overtures Peu-peu-mox-mox answered not, except by a sullen silence, and the negotia tions were broken off. Before any settlement was arrived at, an American recognizing a mule belonging to him among the captured animals, claimed it, with the declara tion that he would have it.

Among the Oregonians was a young chief named Elijah lledding, a son of the Walla Walla chief, who had been 1 aught at the mission school in the Wallamet, and was a convert to Christianity. When he heard the American declare his intention to take his mule, he quickly stepped into his lodge, loaded his rifle, and coming out, said sig nificantly: "Now go and take your mule."

The American inquired, in alarm, if he was going to be shot. "No," said Elijah, "I am going to shoot yonder- eagle," pointing to a neighboring pine tree; and the Amer ican being unarmed, precipitately left the place. On the iollowing Sunday a part of the cattle company went to Suiter s fort, where religious services were to be held, and among them Tauitowe and Elijah. During the afternoon the two chiefs were enticed into an apartment, where they were confronted by several Americans, who had come to California via Oregon, and had suffered annoyances from the Indians along the Columbia river, who now applied such approbrious epithets as "thieves" and "dogs" to the Cayuses and Walla Wallas indiscriminately, and a quarrel ensued, in the midst of which the American who had been threatened by Elijah, drawing a pistol, said: "The other day you were going to kill me now I am going to kill