Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/487

Rh the summer; that nothing more needed to be done or could be done, with regard to the Shoshones, before spring, when the superintendent would essay a treaty at Salmon River, which would serve every purpose; but urged the construction of a fort at Boisé, which had already been directed by the secretary of war, delayed, however, for reasons connected with the threatening aspect of affairs in the southern states. Major Grier's command, which had taken the road to Boisé to look after the immigration, returned to Walla Walla in September.

The troops were no sooner comfortably garrisoned than the local Indian agent at the Umatilla, Byron N. Davis, notified the commander at Fort Walla Walla that a massacre had taken place three weeks previous on Snake River, between Salmon Falls and Fort Boisé, wherein about fifty persons had been killed, or scattered over the wilderness to perish by starvation. Davis also reported that he had immediately despatched two men with a horse-load of provisions to hasten forward to meet any possible survivors; and at the same time a loaded wagon drawn by oxen, this being the best that he could do with the means at his command. As soon as the disaster became known to the military authorities, Captain Dent with one hundred mounted men was ordered to proceed rapidly along the road and afford such assistance as was required by the sufferers, and if possible to punish the Indians. At the same time it was thought that the report brought in by the three known survivors might be exaggerated.

The story of the ill-fated party is one of the most terrible of the many terrible experiences of travellers across the Snake River plains. On the 13th of September, between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, a train of eight wagons and fifty-four persons was