Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/149

We calculated that we were now. thirty miles west of Saint Joseph, and, leaving on the fifteenth, we drove out on the divide between the drainage to Wolf River and to the Nimahaw. On the twentieth we effected a military and civil organization, not more than eight miles from the agency. It was then a spirit-stirring sight to see eighty-four white covered wagons moving along the top of the highest land westward. On the twenty-first occurred the first wedding on the way—for be it remembered we were a fully equipped American community, with all the incidents of orderly community life. On the morning of the twenty-second we had our first Indian trouble. It was found then that six cattle, all first class, had been cut out and driven towards the agency. The flush young grass afforded a trail that we followed at a brisk trot. The Indians had killed and divided four of our animals before we overtook them; then they ran to the agency, leaving two more killed. The agent compelled restoration from the choicest oxen recently purchased for the Indians. He and the chief—the only man I had seen awake in their camp the morning I visited it near Saint Joseph, after they had rifled the saloon—visited our camp and made a compromise. This chief was evidently a man of great natural power, to endure the freaks of his grown-up children, several of whom I judged over six feet high. However, they got small courtesies from us, coming in a heavy rain. One tent was furnished them. It was very difficult to start a fire. One of the youngest had secured a coon, and, thrusting a stick lengthwise through the body, turned it in the struggling blaze so as to burn the hair off. The chief only sat; the others stood stoically in a close group, while the coon was still further turned over the fire until roasted, and then divided, though still rare. The arms borne by these Indians were bows and steel-tipped arrows, with belt knives in a few