proportion of seven pounds of shorts to five of flour, "and
reel as a fox tail at that." Other barrels had good flour
for six inches at either end, and fine shorts all the way,
between. The volunteers preferred, he said, if it werc\
necessary for them to accept more shorts than flour, to
have them put up in separate parcels. 13 And the wheat J
for this flour had been subscribed to the army funds by I
the people, and ground in the governor s mills! \
Waters also wrote to Colonel Lee, May fifth, that the Indians had recently "changed their sentiments" toward the Americans. Tauitowe, Otter-skin Shirt, Sticcas, Ca- maspelo, with their people, had returned to the Umatilla, and professed friendship, but he distrusted them. The plains in that direction were covered with their stock, and among them he believed the stock of the murderers was herded. Welaptulekt, whom he suspected of treachery, had been a prisoner at the fort for ten days, and would be detained there until the colonel s arrival. About one hundred Nez Perees, and several chiefs, were at Waiilatpu awaiting his arrival. They desired to have a talk with the proper authorities, and have a head chief appointed in place of Ellis, who, with sixty of his people, had died of the measles while on a buffalo hunt. The Cayuses were angry with the Nez Perees, and only the night previous had threatened one of them with death at the fort gate for fighting with the Bostons. 14
This was the state of affairs when Colonel Lee reached Waiilatpu about the ninth of May. Here, as might have been foreseen, the men differed in their choice of a leader, and Lee, who had accepted his promotion over Waters conditionally, hastened to return his commission, 15 and that of his adjutant, C. W. Cooke. "I find," said he, "the regiment greatly improved under command of Lieutenant-
" Oregon Archives, MS. 910.
- Oregon Archives, MS. 1021.
15 You are aware of the manner in which I accepted the appointment, and will not be surprised to see the commission returned : Oregon Archives, MS. 998,
