that will in any way cause distrust among the whites during this
crisis. * * * I trust the disavowal in this letter will prove satis
factory to you.
GEORGE ABERNETHY,
Governor of Oregon Territory.
But the commander of the Oregon army did not cross at the Sandy. Starting with two hundred and twenty men he arrived at Vancouver the same day in company with Commissary-General Palmer, where together they pur chased, on their own credit, eight hundred dollars worth of goods necessary to complete the outfit of the companies. The men were mounted but had no pack horses, and the provisions were conveyed in boats, which, owing to their slow movements, delayed the progress of the troops. On arriving at the cascades a portage of several miles was nec essary to reach Fort Gilliam,and the ferry there established. The wind blowing through the gorge of the mountains made crossing to the Oregon side very difficult. A road from the lower to the upper end of the portage being a necessity in order to transport the cannon and other heavy material, .a company was left behind to open it.
Colonel Gilliam was met at "The Cabins" by a dispatch from The Dalles with the news of Lee s first skirmish with the Indians, and hastened forward as rapidly as was pos sible, without waiting for the cannon, the commissary-gen eral, or the other peace commissioners.
The orders issued to Colonel Gilliam, January 29, 1848, were contained in the following letter:
SIR : I received dispatches from Major Lee, under date twentieth instant, in which he informs me that he had had a skirmish with a small party of Indians. On receipt of this you will select some of your best men and horses and scour the Des Chutes river country, if you have an idea that Indians hostile to the whites are in that neighborhood. It will require great caution on your part, as com- mander-in-chief in the field, to distinguish between friends and foes; but when you are certain they are enemies, let them know the Americans are not women. The nine-pounder has been forwarded to the cascades. If the Indians fort themselves it will be of great
