Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/437

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THE ROGUE RIVER WARS. 419

tribes remaining at large. This company received the approbation of the governor, serving until July.

In the meantime, the Indian superintendent was com pelled to call upon the military department for aid, and Lieutenant Ihrie, with special agent William Tichenor of Port Orford, finally succeeded in collecting and forcing upon the reservation these roving savages. On the march of Lieutenant Ihrie s supply train from Pistol river, where he was encamped, to Crescent City for provisions, the escort was attacked and one soldier and ten animals . killed. Tichenor, with a considerable number of prisoners, was waiting for an escort to the reservation; but Ihrie being unable to furnish it, and the Indians being very restless, set out with a small party to conduct them out of the dangerous vicinity. Above Rogue river the prisoners at tempted an escape, and, in the struggle for the mastery, fifteen of them were killed.

In his report to the superintendent, Tichenor says : " They had eight days previously come off the war path, having killed the remainder of the Sebanty band. They stated the facts to me, telling me how they killed two little boys of the band by throwing them into the river; describing their struggling for life in the water, and how they beat them under with stones. They were the most desperate and murderous of all the Indians on the coast. As they never intended to surrender or go on the reservation fifteen of them were killed and two wounded. * * * Ten men and twenty-five women and children yet remain in that country, and I am ready to make further efforts to capture them, or induce them to go on the reservation should you again desire my services."

On the second of July, 1858, Captain Meservey of the Gold Beach volunteers wrote to adjutant-general of Oregon: "The last of the red men have been captured and shot, only women and children spared, and they are en route for the reserve. All further apprehension of danger is at an end, and this portion of Oregon will rest in Iranquility."