had lived in hell for a period long enough to change their
conceptions of the world and humanity, and they were
still too tremulous from injuries to be able to have a steady
judgment. According to their own representations, they
were as suspicious of each other as of their recognized
foes, and conspired to prove conspiracies among each
other. Like other lunatics their worst suspicions were
turned against their best friends; their sick brains were
incapable of comprehending the truth. And, as often
happens in complaints of this nature, the same phenomena
communicated itself, temporarily at least, to the whole
community.
Mr. Ogden found at The Dalles, as the Indians had heard, a company of riflemen, whom Mr. Spalding, not withstanding his word given to the Nez Percés, urged to hasten up and surprise the Cayuses, naming only a few who might be spared ; and this wholesale slaughter was to be perpetrated to " save the animals of the mission !" Might it not be said these people had become deranged?
On the eighth of December Mr. Ogden arrived at Van couver, and on the tenth delivered the rescued Americans into the hands of Governor Abernethy at Oregon City, with Mr. Spalding s letter and the bishop s letter, together with the manifesto of the Cayuse chiefs. It does not re quire much imagination to conceive the excitement occa sioned by the arrival of these unhappy people, nor the influence it had on the conduct of the Cayuse war. Half- crazed widows; young women who had suffered such
(Five Crows) to hold you as a wife to save you from a general abuse by the Indians?" Answer: " I was overwhelmed with such evidence at Waiilatpu, but saw none of it on the Umatilla." In the same deposition Miss Bewley says : "It was made known to us (the captives) after a council, that Edward was to go to the big chief at the Umatilla and see what was to be done with us, and specially with the young women; and after his return he immediately commenced the massacre of the sick young men, and the next morning announced to us that arrangements had been made for Hezekiah to come and take his choice among the young women. * * * Hezekiah did not come for me himself, but sent a man and a boy for the young woman that was & member of Mrs. Whitman s family " ( Miss Bewley): Gray'ssHistory of Oregon, 500, 501.
If the men with families at the mission could not interfere, how could the priests who had no other right than common humanity gave them? That righ
