assisted at the funeral of an Indian who had died during his visit to the Umatilla, and was struck with the absence of the tribe, many of whom were mounted, riding about, and giving no attention to the burial; but as there had been a slaughter of a beef which was being dressed in the mission yard, an occasion which always drew the Indians about, the circumstance was in part at least accounted for. School was in session, several men and boys were absent at the saw-mill near the foot of the mountains; the women were employed with the duties of housekeeping and nursing the sick, and all was quiet as usual when Whitman, fatigued with two nights' loss of sleep, entered the common sitting-room of his house and sat down before the fire to rest, thinking such thoughts as—Ah! who shall say?[1]
While he thus mused, two chiefs, Tiloukaikt and Tamahas, surnamed 'The Murderer,' from his having killed a number of his own people, presented themselves at the door leading to an adjoining room, asking for medicines, when the doctor arose and went to them, afterward seating himself to prepare the drugs. And now the hour had come! Tamahas stepped behind him, drew his tomahawk from beneath his blanket, and with one or two cruel blows laid low forever the man of God. John Sager, who was in the room prostrated by sickness, drew a pistol, but was quickly cut to pieces. In his struggle for life he wounded two of his assailants, who, at a preconcerted signal, had with others crowded into the house. A tumult then arose throughout the mission. All the men encountered by the savages were slain. Some
- ↑ Mrs Husted, then wife of the teacher at the mission, has avowed that Whitman had certainly received some information or intimation on Sunday, and that on arriving at home late that night the family was kept sitting up several hours in consultation, talking over the chances of escape in case of an attack. I think this may be true, but state it only as the evidence of one person, after many years, and the distraction of mind caused by what followed. Spalding, in his lectures before quoted, hints at some such thing by saying, 'The doctor and his wife were seen in tears much agitated.' It becomes difficult to account in that case for the neglect of the doctor to put each man about the mission upon his guard.
