Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/112

104 T. W. DAVENPORT. or dishonest. Let me ask these people who have so much con- fidence m their eyes, if they have seen nothing in the last two or three weeks to cause a suspicion that some secret work was going on here, against their interests ? Did they see those two nicely dressed gentlemen, one from Portland and the other from Walla Walla, hanging around here and soliciting private interviews with me, in fact, playing the agreeable ? Some one answered in the affirmative. Do you know what they wanted 1 Antoine answered, "Yes, all of us know." "How did you know it I never told anybody?" ' ' I learned it from Mr. Flippin, and you know, Mr. Daven- port, that I speak Indian," said Antoine. ' ' What did you learn from Mr. Flippin ? ' ' "Why, that they offered to give you $1,000 to exchange the annuity goods for the same amount in yards, etc., delivered at this place free of cost. ' ' "These people knew of that and yet had no doubts as to my honesty?" Antoine answered: "Why should they have, after hearing the compliment they paid you ? They said to Flippin, ' Daven- port is a tender-hearted d d fool that does not know which side of his bread is buttered.' : I remarked that those gentlemen had no good reason for denouncing me so roughly, for I never intimated once to them that their proposal was not straight business. When thej made it I asked them for a full explanation of how they pro- posed to do, and they gave it without reserve, viz : that they would take a transcript of the invoices of the annuities in store and return the same number of blankets and shawls, yards of satinettes, linseys, calicos, etc., so that the issue of annuities could go on just the same as though no substitution was made. They said, "Of course, the goods we will furnish are not so good, the blankets are not so heavy and the cloths are not so valuable or there would be nothing in the ex- change." They pressed the matter, saying it was a plain business proposition that would profit me more than a year's salary and they would make something out of it too.