r drafts to
exchange with him for a cow and a calf each, out of his
own herds. He also promised them that if they would
postpone their visit to California until the spring of 1847,
and each chief assist him to the amount of two beaver
skin?, he would establish a manual labor and literary
school for their children, besides using every means in his
power to have the trouble with the Californians adjusted,
and would give them from his private funds five hundred
dollars with which to purchase young cows in California.
It must, indeed, have been a serious breach to heal,
when the Indian agent felt forced to pledge his own means
to such an amount. That he succeeded in averting for the
time an impending disaster should be placed to his credit,
even though he was prevented redeeming all his pledges
through the loss of his office by a change in the form of
the provisional government of Oregon, and his ambition
to figure as the delegate of this government to the United
States. 2 He did, however, write to Sutter, and the agent
of the United States government in California, Thomas 0.
Larkin ; a good deal of correspondence on the subject being
still extant, from which it appears that Sutter had given
the Walla Wallas as they were all called in California
permission to hunt for wild horses to be exchanged for
cattle. In the quarrel which arose between Elijah and
Grove Cook, an American, over the ownership of a mule,
the young chief was shot in Sutter s office during his temporary absence. The white witnesses all agreed that
-It is a somewhat curious circumstance that Dr. Elijah White, who certainly achieved, with rare exceptions, the good attempted for the Oregon colony in his official capacity, left behind him in this country, instead of a good reputation, a very unfriendly feeling. That most of it was due to jealousy must be admitted, there beiug no other solution. In the mission colony the friends of Jason Lee were against him ; and among these, as well as the immigrant settlers and members of the legis lature, he was suspected of having designs on the delegateship, whereas both factions had other preferences. But that he was justified in feeling himself a proper person to become a delegate, or to accept an appointment, was shown by the action of the provisional government in asking him to become the bearer of a memorial to con gress. The opportunity offered to attend to his own personal affairs was of course acceptable ; but owing to certain influences the legislature later resolved : "That it was not the intention of this house in passing resolutions in favor of Dr. E. White to recommend him to the government of the United States as a suitable person to fill any office in this territory": See Oregon Archives, *(), too, 116. Before leaving for
