Page:Whitman's Ride through Savage Lands.djvu/192

158 term is generally used, but only a few months before his death he rode on horseback to Oregon City to induce his old friend Judge Thornton to visit Washington and try to persuade the authorities to organize a territorial government in Oregon. The Judge accepted, and was on that mission at the time of the massacre at Waiilatpui (November 29, 1847).

Whitman was a tireless worker. Frequently, after toiling all day in his fields or upon his buildings, he spent long hours of the night on the rounds to visit his sick; yet he did not fail to see the bad influences used upon the Cayuse Indians.

They feared him and his influence. There had been mutterings of discontent among the Cayuse Indians; too many whites were coming in. There was much sickness among the Indians; the measles had prevailed; with their unsanitary living and barbarous treatment of the sick many had died. They laid it all to the white settlers, and blamed those who encouraged and helped them. Good old Istikus, their faithful Indian friend of many years, had warned them that some of his people had bad hearts toward them, and begged them to go away until their hearts were good again. But how could they go. On the fatal morning when the con-