The Log School-House on the Columbia Part 11

At the time of the coming of the missionaries the Cayuse Indians and Nez-Perces occupied the elbow of the Columbia, and the region of the musical names of the Wallula, the Walla Walla, and Waulaptu. They were a superst.i.tious, fierce, and revengful race. They fully believed in witchcraft or conjuring, and in the power to work evil through familiar spirits. Everything to them and the neighboring tribes had its good or evil spirit, or both--the mountains, the rivers, the forest, the sighing cedars, and the whispering firs.

The great plague of the tribes on the middle Columbia was the measles. The disease was commonly fatal among them, owing largely to the manner of treatment. When an Indian began to show the fever which is characteristic of the disease, he was put into and inclosed in a hot clay oven. As soon as he was covered with a profuse perspiration he was let out, to leap into the cold waters of the Columbia. Usually the plunge was followed by death.

There was a rule among these Indians, in early times, that if the "medicine-man" undertook a case and failed to cure, he forfeited his own life. The killing of the medicine-man was one of the dramatic and fearful episodes of the Columbia.

Returning from the East after his famous ride, Whitman built up a n.o.ble mission station at Waulaptu. He was a man of strong character, and of fine tastes and ideals. The mission-house was an imposing structure for the place and time. It had beautiful trees and gardens, and inspiring surroundings.

Mrs. Whitman was a remarkable woman, as intelligent and sympathetic as she was heroic. The colony became a prosperous one, and for a time occupied the happy valley of the West.

One of the vices of the Cayuse Indians and their neighbors was stealing.

The mission station may have overawed them for a time into seeming honesty, but they began to rob its gardens at last, and out of this circ.u.mstance comes a story, related to me by an old Territorial officer, which may be new to most readers. I do not vouch for it, but only say that the narrator of the princ.i.p.al incidents is an old Territorial judge who lives near the place of the Whitman tragedy, and who knew many of the survivors, and has a large knowledge of the Indian races of the Columbia.

To his statements I add some incidents of another pioneer:

"The thieving Cayuses have made 'way with our melons again," said a young farmer one morning, returning from the gardens of the station. "One theft will be followed by another. I know the Cayuses. Is there no way to stop them?"

One of the missionary fraternity was sitting quietly among the trees. It was an August morning. The air was a living splendor, clear and warm, with now and then a breeze that rippled the leaves like the waves of the sea.

He looked up from his book, and considered the question half-seriously, half-humorously.

"I know how we used to prevent boys from stealing melons in the East,"

said he.

"How?"

"Put some tartar emetic in the biggest one. In the morning it would be gone, but the boys would never come after any more melons."

The young farmer understood the remedy, and laughed.

"And," added he, "the boys didn't have much to say about melons after they had eaten _that_ one. The subject no longer interested them. I guess the Indians would not care for more than one melon of that kind."

"I would like to see a wah-wah of Indian thieves over a melon like that!"

said the gardener. "I declare, I and the boys will do it!"

He went to his work, laughing. That day he obtained some of the emetic from the medical stores of the station, and plugged it into three or four of the finest melons. Next morning he found that these melons were gone.

The following evening a tall Indian came slowly and solemnly to the station. His face had a troubled look, and there was an air of mystery about his gait and att.i.tude. He stopped before one of the a.s.sistant missionaries, drew together his blanket, and said:

"Some one here no goot. You keep a conjurer in the camp. Indian kill conjurer. Conjurer ought die; him danger, him no goot."

The laborers gathered round the stately Indian. They all knew about the nauseating melons, and guessed why he had come. All laughed as they heard his solemn words. The ridicule incensed him.

"You one conjurer," he said, "he conjure melons. One moon, two moons, he shall die."

The laborers laughed again.

"Half moon, more moons, he shall suffer--half moon, more moons," that is, sooner or later.

The missionary's face grew serious. The tall Indian saw the change of expression.

"Braves sick." He spread out his blanket and folded it again like wings.

"Braves double up _so_"--he bent over, opening and folding his blanket.

"Braves conjured; melon conjured--white man conjure. Indian kill him."

There was a puzzled look on all faces.

"Braves get well again," said the missionary, incautiously.

"Then you _know_," said the Indian. "You know--you conjure. Make sick--make well!"

He drew his blanket again around him and strode away with an injured look in his face, and vanished into the forests.

"I am sorry for this joke," said the missionary; "it bodes no good."

November came. The nights were long, and there was a perceptible coolness in the air, even in this climate of April days.

Joe Stanfield, a half-breed Canadian and a member of Whitman's family, was observed to spend many of the lengthening evenings with the Cayuses in their lodges. He had been given a home by Whitman, to whom he had seemed for a time devoted.

Joe Lewis, an Indian who had come to Whitman sick and half-clad, and had received shelter and work from him, seems to have been on intimate terms with Stanfield, and the two became bitter enemies to the mission and sought to turn the Cayuses against it, contrary to all the traditions of Indian grat.i.tude.

In these bright autumn days of 1847 a great calamity fell upon the Indians of the Columbia. It was the plague. This disease was the terror of the Northwestern tribes. The Cayuses caught the infection. Many sickened and died, and Whitman was appealed to by the leading Indians to stay the disease. He undertook the treatment of a number of cases, but his patients died.

The hunter's moon was now burning low in the sky. The gathering of rich harvests of furs had begun, and British and American fur-traders were seeking these treasures on every hand. But at the beginning of these harvests the Cayuses were sickening and dying, and the mission was powerless to stay the pestilence.

A secret council of Cayuses and half-breeds was held one night under the hunter's moon near Walla Walla, or else on the Umatilla. Five Crows, the warrior, was there with Joe Lewis, of Whitman's household, and Joe Stanfield, alike suspicious and treacherous, and old Mungo, the interpreter. Sitkas, a leading Indian, may have been present, as the story I am to give came in part from him.

Joe Lewis was the princ.i.p.al speaker. Addressing the Cayuses, he said:

"The moon brightens; your tents fill with furs. But Death, the robber, is among you. Who sends Death among you? The White Chief (Whitman). And why does the White Chief send among you Death, the robber, with his poison?

That he may possess your furs."

"Then why do the white people themselves have the disease?" asked a Cayuse.

None could answer. The question had turned Joe Lewis's word against him, when a tall Indian arose and spread his blanket open like a wing. He stood for a time silent, statuesque, and thoughtful. The men waited seriously to hear what he would say.

It was the same Indian who had appeared at the mission after the joke of the plugged melons.

"Brothers, listen. The missionaries are conjurers. They conjured the melons at Waulaptu. They made the melons sick. I went to missionary chief.

He say, 'I make the melons well.' I leave the braves sick, with their faces turned white, when I go to the chief. I return, and they are well again. The missionaries conjure the melons, to save their gardens. They conjure you now, to get your furs."

The evidence was conclusive to the Cayuse mind. The missionaries were conjurers. The council resolved that all the medicine-men in the country should be put to death, and among the first to perish should be Whitman, the conjurer.

Such in effect was the result of the secret council or councils held around Waulaptu.

Whitman felt the change that had come over the disposition of the tribes, but he did not know what was hidden behind the dark curtain. His great soul was full of patriotic fire, of love to all men, and zeal for the gospel.

He was nothing to himself--the cause was everything. He rode hither and thither on the autumn days and bright nights, engaged in his great work.

He went to Oregon City for supplies.