3
Up in the mountains Dr. Whitman had a saw-mill. The Cayuses did not love toil, they were a haughty race of herders; yet even the Cayuses had kept to work until they had fenced their little farms. But now they frowned and threw down their tools.
There was sickness in the immigration of 1847, t* 16 sickness of moving bodies subject to privation and exposure, mountain fever, dysentery, and measles.
The measles is an aggravating disease even to the whites in their cool homes in the East, very aggravating indeed to immigrants; but to Indians it is death. They tried the traditional sweat-bath and a jump into the river. Day and night Dr. Whitman visited their lodges, warning and watching, but the moment he turned his back, moaning and groaning in the height of fever, they jumped into the cold Walla Walla, to pop up dead.
"The tew-ats! the tew-ats / "cried the old men. " The Great Spirit is angry because we have discarded the tew-ats." The tew-ats came, but the sick ones died.
"Docf Whit'n," said Tamsucky, "Indian say kill all medicine men. They say take big one first, take you."
Dr. Whitman went over to the Willamette valley to consult with Dr. McLoughlin.
"Leave at once," entreated the doctor. "A Cayuse chieftain never jests."
"But I cannot leave," said Dr. Whitman. "My house is full of sick immigrants. I cannot leave. Besides, ' the hireling fleeth because he is an hireling.' "
All the way back Dr. Whitman met the plundered immigrants. They noted his careworn, anxious look. War hung in the ai
