River on the 29th, and encamped near the camp of Peupeumoxmox, who made professions of friendship for the Americans, and sold them some beef cattle. During the night there was an alarm of Indians, but none could be discovered until on the afternoon of the next day's march the smoke of their fires could be discerned in the direction of Waiilatpu.
On the 2d of March the volunteers encamped near the mission, when Gilliam took two companies and visited the scene of the massacre, finding that, the houses had been burned, and all the property carried off or destroyed. Wagons and everything movable had been cast into the fire, and nothing remained but a heap of adobes, broken china, glass, pottery, and warped iron, while books, letters, and many lighter articles were scattered about[1] the enclosure, and the orchard trees were hacked or cut down. Horror was added to desolation, for strewn over the ground were the mutilated remains of the victims of the massacre, which had been disinterred by wolves.[2]
This spectacle evidently hardened the heart of the impulsive commander against peace commissions, and he returned in an impatient mood to camp, after re-
- ↑ Among the letters were some which showed that Whitman had been aware of his danger. Joel Palmer, in Brouillet's Authentic Account, 21.
- ↑ A tress of Mrs Whitman's hair is preserved among the relics m the Oregon archives at Salem. Newell's Memoranda, MS., 11; Victor's River of the West, 433. There is also in the state archives a tomahawk said to have been the one used by Tamahas in killing Whitman. When Tamahas was about to be executed, it is said he gave the hatchet to Stock Whitley, a chief of the Des Chutes, whose family presented it to Donald McKay, who in turn gave it to William Logan, Indian agent at Warm Springs in 1864. It was exhibited by Logan at a sanitary fair during the civil war, and finally presented to the state. It is not probable, however, that Tamahas would give a keepsake to a Des Chutes chief when the tribe had refused to assist the guilty Cayuses. Another and more probable story is that Tamahas used a hatchet obtained by Tiloukaikt of the Gros Ventres in 1833, and that he presented it to Five Crows a few years afterward. This fact, if established, would go to show that Five Crows was fully apprised of the intention of the Walla Walla Cayuses. See Portland Oregonian, March 9, 1865.
nition, the friendly natives pretending to be afraid of the Cayuses; and if refused, they then wanted a pass to go to Vancouver, in all probability to purchase powder and ball, from which circumstances he feared their intentions were not good. There were no means of ascertaining the truth of an Indian report, which had always to be received with caution. See Or. Archives, MS., 132.
