In those days, no well-established Indian law recognized the necessity for a marriage ceremony, neither prevented a brave from taking as many wives as he was able to buy, or otherwise obtain.
Hence this captive girl became a prize within reach of any brave who went on the warpath, and could succeed.
This tempting bounty, together with a love of plunder and the thirst for revenge, added to the ambition of the Indians to do something that would entitle them to the recognition of their manhood by white men, made recruiting easy to accomplish, and the two companies were quickly made up. The enlisted Indian scouts, when supported by the Government and furnished with arms and ammunition, clothed and mounted, were just the thing Crook had been wanting.
The Snakes had learned that soldiers in blue were poor marksmen, and that they could drive them by strategy. But as one of the chiefs related afterward, when they saw blue coats slip from their horses and take to the brush, giving back shot for shot, they were astonished. Then, too, the scouts under the McKays, Indians themselves, tracked them over plain and mountain, until they were forced to fortify, and, they became desperate.
Meanwhile this wily general, divested of his official toga, was out with his Indian scouts, one of whom said he looked like “a-cul-tus-til-le-cum” (a common
man), but he “mum-ook-sul-lux-ic-ta-hi-as-tyee-si-wash,” (“makes war like a big Indian chief.”)
General Crook, giving his Indian scouts permission to take scalps and prisoners, under savage war custom, very soon compelled the Snake chiefs to sue for peace.
This result was brought about by the “Warm Springs” and “Umatillas,” under the leadership of the McKay brothers, who advised a winter campaign. General Crook, with rare good sense, availing himself of their wisdom and experience, pursuing the Snakes, in mid-winter, over the high sage brush plains, and through the mountains.
The Snakes were under the leadership of three several chiefs. E-E-gan’s band, infesting the frontier on Burnt and Owyhee rivers, Eastern Oregon, numbering never more than three hundred warriors, had been reduced to less than two hundred, by the casualties of war; We-ah-we-wa’s band, of about the same number, swinging along between Burnt river and the Cañon City country.
Against these Donald McKay, with the Umatilla Indian scouts, was sent, supported by a company of the United States cavalry.