of August, was established at Fort Steilacoom. In Sep
tember the guilty Indians were surrendered, and in October
two of the chief participants in the crime, Kassas and
Quallawort, a brother of Patkanim, were tried and exe
cuted. This trial cost the United States about three thou
sand dollars. During the following winter one of the
artillerymen of Fort Steilacoom was murdered, but the
crime could not be fixed upon any individual, and went
unpunished.
It is but justice here to record the fact that the sup pression of hostilities in this region at this period of its history, was due largely to the influence of the Hudson's Bay Company, and personally to Dr. Tolmie, whose knowl edge and good judgment were powerful to avert hostilities. 7
As to the arrest of the Cay use murderers, that could not be undertaken by the new government before the arrival of the rifle regiment. That body, after being recruited at Fort Leaven worth, set out for Oregon May 10, 1849, with about six hundred men, thirty-one commissioned officers, several women and children, one hundred and sixty wagons, teamsters, guides, and train agents, nearly two thousand mules and horses, and subsistence for the whole, the officer in command being Brevet-Colonel W. W. Loring.
Posts were established at Laramie and Fort Hall, where two companies each were left. Cholera, which had broken out among the immigration, to California, carried off a considerable number of the ill-conditioned recruits, and desertion to the gold mines as many more. A herd of beef cattle and other supplies intended to meet the regiment at Fort Hall 8 having taken the southern route, and being late in starting, failed to meet Loring s command, which
7 Notwithstanding this truth, there are several letters in the Oregon Archives, MS. numbered from nine hundred and fifty-one to nine hundred and fifty-seven, which show an attempt to convict Tolmie of influencing the Indians against the American settlers.
8 The supply train sent from Oregon consisted of fifteen freight wagons and a herd of fat cattle. The expedition was commanded by Lieutenant Hawkins of Lane s escort, and piloted by the late commissary-general, Joel Palmer, who, when within a few days of Fort Hall, turned back and took charge of a train to
