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Rh was brought to execution, seventy people were in the mission station, mostly women, children, and sick men worn out by long travel and exposure. It was two hundred and fifty miles to Fort Vancouver by trail or in open boats down the Columbia River. That was the only place of safety, and they could not leave all these people, nor could they take them. Moreover, Whitman still had faith in his Indians, which was partly justified by the facts, as it was proved that no Cayuse could quite bring himself to strike the first blow. But they found one more treacherous who was ready to take the Judas part in the tragedy. He was called Joe Tahamas, a half-breed Canadian, who had come to the mission station several months before hungry, sick, and half-clad. As their custom was they took him in, clothed, fed, and nursed him back to health again. After a time they found him fomenting quarrels among their people, and stirring up their evil passions in various ways. They finally procured him a place as teamster to go to the Willamette River, and hoped their troubles with him were ended. He had returned, and from after evidence, had no doubt been going through the tribe, and with a lying tongue rousing the Indians to a mad passion against their friends and benefactors. Some distant chief of the tribe had armed him with what was known as "The