Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/252

234 conduct of the Coquilles. As Dart had come to treat, he did not wish to appear as an avenger; neither did he feel secure as conciliator. It was at length decided to employ the Cape Blanco native, who undertook to ascertain the whereabouts, alive or dead, of the seven men still missing of the T'Vault party. This he did by sending two women of his tribe to the Coquille River, where the killing of five, and probable escape of the rest, was ascertained. The women interred the mangled bodies in the sand.

The attitude of the Coquilles was not assuring. To treat with them while they harbored murderers would not do; and how to make them give them up without calling on the military puzzled the superintendent. Finally Parrish, whose residence among the Clatsops had given him some knowledge of the coast tribes, undertook to secure hostages, but failed. Dart returned to Portland about the 1st of October, leaving his interpreter with Kautz.

Between the visits of Governor Gaines to Rogue River and Dart to Port Orford, disturbances had been resumed in the former region. Gaines had agreed upon a mutual restitution of property or of its value, which was found not to work well, the miners being as much dissatisfied as the Indians. From this reason, and because the majority of the Rogue River natives were not parties to the treaty, not many weeks had elapsed after Gaines returned to Oregon City before depredations were resumed. A settler's cabin was broken into on Grave Creek, and some travellers were fired on from ambush; rumors of which reaching the superintendent before leaving the Willamette, he sent a messenger to request the Rogue River chiefs to meet him at Port Orford. Ignorance of Indian ways, unpardonable in a superintendent, could alone have caused so great a blunder. Not only did they refuse thus to go into their neighbor's territory,