Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/99



THE (JAYUSE WAR. 81

terms of amity and alliance; and a portion of them were for raising two thousand warriors and marching at once to California to take reprisal by capture and plunder, en riching themselves by the spoils of the enemy. Another part were more cautious, wishing first to take advice, and to learn whether the white people in Oregon would remain neutral. A third party were for holding the Oregon colony responsible, because Elijah had been killed by an American.

There was business, indeed, for an Indian agent with no government at his back, and no money to carry on either war or diplomacy. But Dr. White was equal to it. He arranged a cordial reception for the chief among the col onists; planned to have Dr. McLoughlin divert his mind by referring to the tragic death of his own son by treachery, which enabled him to sympathize with the father and rela tives of Elijah ; and, on his own part, took him to visit the schools and his own library, and in every way treated the chief as if he were the first gentleman in the land. Still further to establish social equality, he put on his farmer s garb and began working on his plantation, in which labor Ellis soon joined him, and the two discussed the benefits already enjoyed by the ^native population as the result of intelligent labor.

Nothing, however, is so convincing to an Indian as a present, and here, it would seem, Dr. White must have failed, but not so. In the autumn of 1844, thinking to prevent trouble with the immigration by enabling the chiefs in the upper country to obtain cattle without violating the laws, lie had given them some ten-dollar treasury drafts to be exchanged with the immigrants for young stock, which drafts the immigrants refused to accept, not knowing where they should get them cashed. To heal the wound caused by this disappointment, White now sent word by Ellis to these chiefs to come down in the autumn with Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding, to hold a council over the California affair, and to bring with them their ten-dolla