NARRATIVE OF 1855. 225 
battles; and I feel that I can without impropriety refer to the success of my labors among these 
Indians, backed up simply with a little party of 24 men. When our council was adjourned, the 
Indians gave the best test of their friendship and affection, by each one coming to lay before me 
his little wrongs and ask redress. They came in a body and offered me a force to help me 
through the hostilities of Walla-Walla valley and on the banks of the Columbia, which I 
declined, saying that I came not among the Spokanes for their aid, but to protect them as their 
. father. 
I now determined to move to the Nez Percés country, although on the Spokane the uniform 
feeling of the Indians was, that they were hostile and would try to get us into difficulty—a 
conclusion which seemed to be much supported by the fact that the Nez Percés chief, the 
Looking Glass, who had accompanied me to the Spokane, endeavored to betray me there. This 
little incident will serve to explain to what expedients one has to resort in these cases of 
difficulty. I had made a forced march to the Spokane. The Looking Glass came in the next 
day. І saw from his countenance that something was wrong with him, and I immediately got 
a half-breed interpreter, in whom I could trust, on the track to overhear his conversations. 
That interpreter kept about him, and finally overhead a long conversation between the Looking 
Glass and a prominent Spokane chief, in which the Looking Glass proceeded to develop his 
plan to entrap and deceive me in his own country, amid the Nez Percés, and in which he 
advised a similar course to the Spokanes. I never communicated to the Looking Glass my 
knowledge of his plans, but, knowing them, I knew how to meet them in council; I also knew 
how to meet him in his own country, and it gave me no difficulty. In order, however, to be 
prepared for all possible contingencies, I exchanged all but four of my horses for the best 
horses of the country, giving in exchange the Indian goods that we had brought up for the 
contemplated Spokane council, and when I moved from the Spokane I had with me the best 
train of the season. I reduced transportation to twelve days, and the packs to eighty pounds, 
for I desired to be in a condition that if the Nez Percés were really hostile, and I was not strong 
enough to fight, I could make a good run, and then I struck for the Nez Percés country. The 
second day I met an express from Craig's, telling me that the Nez Percés were all right, and 
that the whole tribe would back me up. We moved towards Lapwai, and were four days in 
reaching that point, the distance being 108 miles. The weather was very disagreeable, being 
snowy and rainy. In about fifty miles from the Spokane we got upon our old trail to the Red 
Wolf's ground, which trail we followed for about twenty miles, and then keeping to our left, 
passed to the mouth of the Lapwai, and thence to William Craig’s place, on that stream. The 
banks of the Spokane, and pretty much the whole route from the Kamas prairie of the Cœur 
d'Alénes, is very well wooded; and the route towards Lapwai, for the whole distance, passos 
in the vicinity of a very well wooded country, except for about fifteen miles before reaching 
the Kooskooskia. My object not being to give an account of my Indian operations or of the 
Indian war, I will close my narrative at this point, referring you to my official reports should 
further information be desired in connexion with this trip. I will state that on my way into 
the settlements I remained in the Walla-Walla valley some ten days, where I saw much of the 
Oregon volunteers. Went to the Dalles, in advance of my party, with three men, and, the 
river being closed by ice, went down from the Dalles to near Vancouver on the trail, and 
reached Olympia on the 19th of January. I intend at some future day to give a very full 
account of these large operations in the Indian service. 
9s 
