Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/213

Rh by going up the stream for several miles and crossing it on a raft. To be secure against a similar encounter, they now kept to the woods for two days, though by doing so they deprived themselves of the only food, except salmon berries, which they had been able to find. At one place they fell in with a small band of savages whom they frightened away by charging toward them. Again emerging on the beach they lived on mussels for four days. The only assistance received was from the natives on Cowan River which empties into Coos Bay. These people were friendly, and fed and helped them on their way. On the eighth day the party reached the mouth of the Umpqua, where they were kindly cared for by the settlers at that place.

When Tichenor arrived at San Francisco, he proceeded to raise a party of forty men to reënforce his settlement at Port Orford, to which he had promised to return by the 23d of the month. The Seagull being detained, he took passage on the Columbia, Captain Le Roy, and arrived at Port Orford as agreed, on the 23d, being surprised at not seeing any of his men on shore. He immediately landed, however, with Le Roy and eight others, and saw provisions and tools scattered over the ground, and on every side the signs of a hard struggle. On the ground was a diary kept by one of the party, in which the beginning of the first day's battle was described, leaving off abruptly where the first Indian seized a comrade's gun. Hence it was thought that all had been killed, and the account first published of the affair set it down as a massacre; a report which about one week later was corrected by a letter from Kirkpatrick, who, after giving a history of his adventures, concluded