Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/566

548 was assumed by General L. H. Rosseau, who, however, made no essential changes in the department. Arrangements were continued in each district for a winter campaign of great activity. The military journals contain frequent entries of skirmishes, with a few Indians killed, and more taken prisoners; with acknowledgments of some losses to the army in each. Crook, whose district was in the most elevated portion of the country traversed, kept some portion of the troops continually in the field, marching from ten to twenty miles a day over unbroken fields of snow from one to two feet in depth. In February he was on Dunder and Blitzen Creek, south of Malheur Lake, where he fought the Indians, killing and capturing fourteen. While returning to Warner, a few nights later, the savages crept up to his camp, and killed twenty-three horses and mules by shooting arrows into them and cutting their throats. Crook proceeded toward camp Warner, but sent back a detachment to discover whether any had returned to feast on the horse-flesh. Only two were found so engaged, who were killed. Another battle was fought with the Indians, in the neighborhood of Steen Mountain, on the 14th of April, when several were killed.

The troops at Camp Harney made a reconnoissance of the Malheur country in May, which resulted in surprising ten lodges on the north fork of that river near Castle Rock, or as it was sometimes called, Malheur Castle, and capturing a number of the enemy, among whom was a notorious subchief known as E. E. Gantt, who professed a great desire to live thereafter in peace, and offered to send couriers to bring in his warriors and the head chief, Wewawewa, who, he declared, was as weary of conflict as himself. On