he
genius of a Caesar Whitman led his battalions in the centre of the river-bed for twenty-five miles. Over the rough hills, on the first of October, the main body of the immigration entered the Grande Ronde valley. Hundreds of Indian women were digging and drying the camas. A second party of Cayuses, on their plump little horses adorned with streamers, came out to meet them with a feast of bread and berries and elk meat. In their long-laced leggings, and deerskin jackets, and flying hair, the Cayuses welcomed Dr. Whitman with a thousand extravagant antics, circling about and about, and flinging themselves over and under their ponies like circus boys.
The Indians offered their native roots. The white people gingerly touched the bulbous camas. It flaked off like an onion. "Better than licorice," said the white children. The snowy kouse, the biscuit-root, was tasted. "Sweet potatoes," shouted the little Yankees, and later most of them learned to like the starchy wapato.
While yet feasting, a courier rode into the Grande Ronde and stopped at the doctor's tent.
"Mr. and Mrs. Spalding are very ill. They send for you."
Dr. Whitman turned to the faithful Cayuse that had met him at Fort Hall, "Sticcas, my boy, can you guide these people in?"
"I can," answered the sub-chief, who was never known to refuse a request of Dr. Whitman.
The doctor struck across the country to Lapwai. Sticcas went ahead, with forty men, cutting a road through the heavy timber. The Applegates, the Daniel Boones of Oregon, Burnett, the future governor, and Nesmith, the senator-to-be, walked all the way through
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