One of the vices of the Cayuse Indians and their neighbors was stealing. The mission station may have overawed them for a time into seeming honesty, but they began to rob its gardens at last, and out of this circumstance comes a story, related to me by an old Territorial officer, which may be new to most readers. I do not vouch for it, but only say that the narrator of the principal incidents is an old Territorial judge who lives near the place of the Whitman tragedy, and who knew many of the survivors, and has a large knowledge of the Indian races of the Columbia. To his statements I add some incidents of another pioneer:
"The thieving Cayuses have made 'way with our melons again," said a young farmer one morning, returning from the gardens of the station. "One theft will be followed by another. I know the Cayuses. Is there no way to stop them?"
One of the missionary fraternity was sitting quietly among the trees. It was an August morning. The air was a living splendor, clear and warm, with now and then a breeze that rippled the leaves like the waves of the sea.
He looked up from his book, and considered the question half-seriously, half-humorously.
"I know how we used to prevent boys from stealing melons in the East," said he.
"How?"
"Put some tartar emetic in the biggest one. In the morning it would be gone, but the boys would never come after any more melons."
The young farmer understood the remedy, and laughed.
"And," added he, "the boys didn't have much to say about melons after they had eaten that one. The subject no longer interested them. I guess the Indians would not care for more than one melon of that kind."
"I would like to see a wah-wah of Indian thieves over a melon like that!" said the gardener. "I declare, I and the boys will do it!"