LET 'ER BUCK 



linger, and others is shown. In it men of the cow-camp 

 and from many of the remote Oregon towns play their 

 part in such a natural way, that you in the bleachers 

 forget you are sitting on the soft side of a board. 

 Here ranger, Indian fighter, cowboy, and sheriff are off 

 duty, but hotel proprietor, barkeeper, and John China- 

 man are decidedly on. It is a drama in which many 

 of these players are in reality the characters they por- 

 tray. Not even a rehearsal is held. The "boys" are 

 simply told what is expected of them and when they 

 are to do it. The stage coach dashes careening in from 

 a hold-up, the town is shot to pieces by outlaws. Then 

 Indians creep stealthily in while Happy Canyon sleeps 

 and attack in the early morning hours, as in the days 

 when the Snakes and Bannocks went on the warpath 

 and stole in on the settlers hereabouts forty years ago. 



One of the most dramatic climaxes in the old life of 

 the red man of this continent will probably be that re- 

 markable scene witnessed by the va^t throng in Happy 

 Canyon the fall after the Armistice. It was known 

 among old settlers and others here in Pendleton that 

 some of the Indians still possessed scalps which, how- 

 ever, they kept carefully concealed from the eyes of the 

 paleface. No persuasion would induce these sons of 

 the forests and plains to produce them. 



Suddenly just before the 1919 Round-Up the Indian 

 interpreter, Leo Sampson, came to Roy Raley, the 

 director and organizer of Happy Canyon. He said 

 that the head man, a sort of sub-chief, Jim Bad Roads, 

 had sent him to speak on behalf of the Indians. Many 

 of their young bucks, he said, had joined the army and 

 gone overseas and had helped in the defeat of the 

 enemy. His people, particularly the old people, wanted 

 to dance their Victory Dance in honor of their victor- 



108 



