422 NOTES OF TRAVEL AMONG 



and several children whom he had humanely adopted, left orphans 

 by the death of their parents, who had died on their way to Oregon, 

 besides a Spanish half-breed boy, whom he had brought up for 

 several years. Ihere were likewise several families of emigrants 

 staying with him at the time, to rest and refresh themselves and 

 cattle. The Indians supposed that the Doctor could have stayed 

 the course of the malady had he wished it, and they were confirmed 

 in this belief by the Spanish half breed boy, v»ho told some of them 

 that he had overheard the Doctor and his wife conversing after they 

 retired for the night, and that he heard him say he would give them 

 bad medicine, and kill all the Indians, that he might appropriate 

 their land to himself. They accordingly concocted a plan to destroy 

 the Doctor and his wife and all the males of the establishment. 

 With this object in view, about sixty of them armed themselves and 

 came to the house. The inmate.--, having no suspicion of any hostile 

 intention, were totally unprepared for resistance or flight. Dr. and 

 Mrs. Whitman, and their nephew, a youth about seventeen or eighteen 

 years of age, were sitting in their parlour in the afternoon when 

 Til-aw-kile the Chief, and To-ma-kus entered the room, and address- 

 ing the Doctor, Til-aw-kite told him very coolly that they had 

 come to kill him. The Doctor, not believing it possible that they 

 could entertain any hostile intentions towards him, told them as 

 much. But while in the act of speaking, To-ma-kus drew a toma- 

 hawk from under his robe and buried it deep in his brain. The 

 unfortunate man fell dead from his chair. Mrs. Whitman and the 

 nephew fled up stairs, and fastened themselves into an upper room. 

 In the meantime Til-aw-kite gave the war whoop as a signal to his 

 party outside to proceed in the work of destruction, which they did 

 with the ferocity and yells of so many fiends. Mrs. Whitman, 

 hearing the shrieks and groans of the dying, looked out of the win- 

 dow, and a son of the Chief shot her through the breast, but did 

 not kill her at the moment. A party then rushed up stairs, and 

 despatching the nephew on the spot, they dragged her down by the 

 hair of her head, and taking her to the front of the house they 

 mutilated her in a shocking manner with tin ir knives and toma- 

 hawks. There was one man who had a wife bedridden. On the 

 commencement of the affray he ran to her room, and, taking her up 

 in his arms, carried her, unperceived by the Indians, to the thick 

 bushes that skirted the river, and hurried on with his burden in the 

 direction of Fort Walla- Walla. Having reached a distance of fif- 

 teen miles, he became so exhausted, that, unable to carry her further, 

 he concealed her in a thick hummock of bushes on the margin of 



