Scotum declared: “The chief Pu-pu-mox-mox sent us word, and so did the Cuyuses; they sent us word many times, but we have always turned our faces from them and kept the laws.”
Here was evidence that the treacherous chiefs were inciting hostilities immediately after signing the treaties.
At this juncture an Indian runner was announced from the Walla Walla valley with the important news that a force of five hundred Oregon volunteers, under Colonel Kelly (late United States senator), after a severe battle of four days’ duration, had defeated the hostiles, and driven them from the valley. The absence of the Palouse Indians during the forced march through their country was now explained. They were fighting the volunteers at that very time. The way being thus opened, Governor Stevens was enabled to dispense with the proffered aid of the Nez Perces; but in order to confirm their fidelity and good feeling, he invited a hundred warriors to accompany his party as a guard of honor as far as the Walla Walla valley.
It was a clear, bright, frosty December morning that the mingled cavalcade of white and Indian left behind the hospitable lodges of the Nez Perces, and filed along the banks of the Lapwai and Kooskooskia. Rarely has the Clearwater reflected a more picturesque or jovial crew. Here were the gentlemen of the party, with their black felt hats and heavy cloth overcoats; rough-clad miners and packers; the mountain men, with buckskin shirts and leggings and fur caps; the long-eared pack-mules, with their bulky loads; and the blanketed young braves, with painted visage, and hair adorned with eagle feathers, mounted on sleek and spirited mustangs, and dashing hither and thither in the greatest excitement and glee. Each of the warriors had three fine, spirited horses, which he rode in turn as the fancy moved him. They used buckskin pads, or wooden saddles covered with buffalo, bear, or mountain-goat skin. The bridle was a simple line of buffalo hair tied around the lower jaw of the steed, which yielded implicit obedience to this scanty headgear. At a halt the long end of the line is flung loosely on the ground, and the horse is trained to stand without other fastening.
The whole party were ferried across Snake River by the Indians in their canoes, the animals swimming. Proceeding down the left bank some distance as the trail to Walla Walla ran, it was found that the Nez Perces had wholly vacated that side of the river, and removed with their bands of horses, goods, and lodges, and especially their canoes, to the other side, in order to cut off intercourse with the hostile Indians. The demeanor of the young braves on this march was in marked contrast to the traditional gravity and stoicism of their race. They shouted, laughed, told stories, cracked jokes, and gave free vent to their native gayety and high spirits. Craig, who accompanied the party, translated these good things as they occurred, to the great amusement of the whites. Crossing a wide, flat plain, covered with tall rye grass, he related an anecdote of Lawyer, with the reminiscence of which the young braves seemed particularly tickled. When yet an obscure young warrior, Lawyer was traveling over this ground with a party of the tribe, including several of the principal chiefs. It was a cold winter day, and a biting gale swept up the river, penetrating their clothing and chilling them to the bone. The chiefs sat down in the shelter of the tall rye grass, and were indulging in a cosy smoke, when Lawyer fired the prairie far to windward, and in an instant the fiery element, in a long, crackling, blazing line, came sweeping down on the wings of the wind upon the comfort-taking chiefs, and drove them to rush helter-skelter into the river for safety, dropping robes, pipes, and everything that might impede their flight. For this audacious prank Lawyer barely escaped a public whipping.
At the governor’s request, the Indians undertook to guard the horses while the whites guarded the camp at night, and as the country was still infested with bands of hostiles, who had burned off nearly all the grass, and the animals were with difficulty prevented from straying far and wide in search of feed, it will be readily seen that they had chosen the more arduous task. Every evening, as the young men would linger around the camp-fires, reluctant to start out upon the cold and dreary night work, one or more of the chiefs would exhort them to their duty, bemoan the degeneracy of the present race, and relate instances of the superior bravery and fortitude of young men in former times. The young fellows were not slow to retort to these harangues with many a sarcastic gibe and jest, but finally they would go forth to spend the cold winter night upon the exposed prairie on horseback, posted around the band of animals. So faithfully did they perform this duty that not one was lost during the march.
It was a gala day for the Nez Perces when the party reached the valley, and were received by the Oregon volunteers with a military parade and a salute of musketry; and when Governor Stevens dismissed them with presents and thanks and words of encouragement, they returned home the most devoted and enthusiastic auxiliaries that ever marched in behalf of the whites.
On this march the Nez Perce escort captured a strange Indian on Al-pa-wha Creek, who proved to be the son of Ume-how-lish, the war chief of the Cuyuses, and who said that the chief, with one follower and a number of women, was in hiding farther up the creek, having fled from the valley the last day of the recent fight. The governor sent the young man to his father with the summons to surrender himself a prisoner. The next day Ume-how-lish delivered himself up, saying that he had done nothing bad, and was not afraid to be tried by the white man’s law, and thereafter traveled along with the party to his uncertain fate with true Indian stoicism. He accompanied the governor to the Dalles, where he was turned over to the Oregon authorities. He was afterwards released by Colonel Wright. There was no evidence that he had taken part in the murder of settlers, although he had undoubtedly fought in the recent battle.
The valley was reached on the 20th. Major Chinn, commanding the volunteers, and other officers rode out to meet the governor, and, on reaching the volunteer camp, the troops, four hundred in number, paraded, and fired a volley in salute as the picturesque column marched past, the fifty sturdy, travel-stained whites in advance, followed by the hundred proud and flaunting braves, curveting their horses and uttering their war-whoops. The volunteers then formed in hollow square, and the governor addressed them in a brief speech, complimenting them on their energy in pushing forward at that inclement season, and gallantry in engaging and routing a superior force of the enemy, and tendering the thanks of his party for opening the road. He seized the occasion also to dwell upon the advantages—the necessity—of a winter campaign to bring the war to a speedy end. The governor was the first to grasp this idea of a winter campaign as the most effective method of reducing hostile Indians to subjection. As will be seen hereafter, he urged this course upon General Wool and the military authorities, but only to have his views denounced and ridiculed as “impracticable;” but finally, under the stern lessons of experience, they had to be adopted. It was only by winter campaigns that General Crook succeeded in subduing the Snakes of Idaho and eastern Oregon in 1868–69.
Over a hundred of the Cuyuses and Walla Wallas refused to join their kindred in the war, and remained friendly, including Steachus, Tin-tim-meet-see, and How-lish-wam-poo, and were now encamped on Mill Creek under the protection of a guard, needed unhappily not less against a few of the unruly volunteers, who had already killed some of their cattle, than against apprehended raids by the hostiles. The little flock of Indians under the ministrations of Father Chirouse of the Catholic mission also remained friendly, thanks to the good influence of the Fathers.