"I have not a charge of powder in the house," answered the doctor.
Tom Hill was not there; he remained with Fremont in California; Dorion was not there, but the seed of their sedition was growing in the hearts of the frightened Cayuses. "Let us go to war," said Chief Tiloukaikt in the Indian council.
"War not," said Pio-pio-mox-mox. "The Americans fight like eagles. I have seen them in California. You will all be killed."
"Dr. Whitman does this," said Jo Lewis, a half-breed renegade, who came that autumn sick and starving with the immigrants. Dr. Whitman took him in, doctored, fed, and clothed him, and gave him work. He heard the whisper of discontent; his evil nature delighted to swell and spread it. It puffed his pride to see the eager Indians hanging on his word.
"Yes," said Jo Lewis, in the Indian council. "Dr. Whitman has been writing for two years to his friends in the East for poison to kill off the Cayuses. It has just come. When I was lying sick in the doctor's room I heard them talking."
"That must be so," chimed in Nick Finley, another half-breed. "One hundred and ninety-seven Indians have died already."
"He wants to get your beautiful spotted horses," added Jo Stanfield, a third half-breed.
In a lodge on the Umatilla the conspirators whispered not with Tauitau, Five Crows, and Piopio-mox-mox. "They would betray us," said the halfbreeds.
"I am a Cherokee," said Jo Lewis. "A few missionaries came, then thousands of Americans came, and drove us away from our country."
