party of them was discovered gathering up the stock left
by the immigrants at the mission with the apparent
intention of driving it away. A detachment of seventeen
men was ordered out, and Lee went in pursuit of the rob
bers, when a running fight ensued which lasted two hours,
in which Sergeant William Berry was wounded. Three
Indians were killed, and one wounded. The marauders,
twenty- three in number, were well mounted, while some
of the volunteers were on foot. The advantage thus
given the Indians enabled them to drive off the herd of
three hundred cattle a serious loss in a country desti
tute of provisions. During the skirmish the Indians
repeatedly called out, "We are good Cay uses; come on,
you Americans, and fight us ! "
On the following morning a detachment going out to help in the Des Chutes chief, Siletza, who had been robbed for refusing to join the thieves, about one-third of whom were Cay uses, captured sixty Indian horses, regarded as a poor offset to three hundred beef cattle.
As this act of hostility occurred immediately after Mr. Ogden with the captives passed The Dalles, it was no doubt undertaken by the Cay uses in retaliation for the apparent violation of the agreement made at the council in the Cayuse country, that commissioners should be sent up to treat for peace, and that during the interim no war measures should be adopted by either side. The presence of armed men at The Dalles, and the rumors of more expected, dissolved the compact, of which freedom the Cayuses hastened to take advantage.
About this time Colonel Gilliam was enabled to make a start for The Dalles, with a single company, several others being on the way to the rendezvous in Portland. As Abernethy had written to Lee, it was a task to get several hundred men together, prepared to be absent from homes where they were needed, for a period of six months.
The colonel of the first regiment of Oregon riflemen
