obedient to their chiefs, and remember them in their
morning and evening prayers. This too, was good talk,
but it did not touch the subject tying nearest the Cayuse
heart, which was: Would Dr. Whitman return with many
white people to take away their lands.
An invitation was extended to the chiefs to address the meeting. Ellis declined, saying it would not be proper for the Nez Percés to speak before the Cayuses had adopted the laws thus signifying his desire that they should do so and the Cayuses replied that they would see the laws before adopting them.
Hines says : " A speech was then delivered to the young men to impress them favorably with regard to the laws. They were told they would soon take the places of the old men, and they should be willing to act for the good of the people; that they should not go here and there and spread false reports about war; for that this had been the cause of all the difficulty and excitement that had prevailed among them during the winter."
Gray, in his History of Oregon, remarks that this state ment was untrue; and so it was, not because it did riot assign a sectarian cause for the disturbances, as he would have done, but because it ignored the cause behind all, and laid the blame upon one of its natural consequences.
When the laws had been read in the English and Nez Percé languages, Yellow Serpent (Peu-peu-mox-mox) arose. An Indian speech seldom is logical, seldom has any beginning, middle or ending, but often touches of unconscious eloquence or sharply pointed truths. The oratory on this occasion was a fair example of aboriginal rhetoric. Thus the Walla W^alla chief: "I have a mes sage to you. Where are these laws from? I would I might say they were from God. But I think they are from the earth, because from what I know of white men they do not honor these laws."
It was then explained to him that the laws were recog nized by God and imposed on men in all civilized coun-
