her, furnished a rude but
certain substitute. In executing the sentence each Indian in turn
was made to stand on the top barrel, and after the noose was adjusted
the lower barrel was knocked away, and the necessary drop thus
obtained. In this way the whole nine were punished. Just before
death they all acknowledged their guilt by confessing their
participation in the massacre at the block-house, and met their doom
with the usual stoicism of their race.

CHAPTER VI.

MISDIRECTED VENGEANCE--HONORABLE MENTION--CHANGE OF COMMAND--EDUCATED
OXEN--FEEDING THE INDIANS--PURCHASING A BURYING-GROUND--KNOWING RATS.

While still encamped at the lower landing, some three or four days
after the events last recounted, Mr. Joseph Meek, an old frontiersman
and guide for emigrant trains through the mountains, came down from
the Dalles, on his way to Vancouver, and stopped at my camp to
inquire if an Indian named Spencer and his family had passed down to
Vancouver since my arrival at the Cascades. Spencer, the head of the
family, was a very influential, peaceable Chinook chief, whom Colonel
Wright had taken with him from Fort Vancouver as an interpreter and
mediator with the Spokanes and other hostile tribes, against which
his campaign was directed. He was a good, reliable Indian, and on
leaving Vancouver to join Colonel Wright, took his family along, to
remain with relatives and friends at Fort Dalles until the return of
the expedition. When Wright was compelled to retrace his steps on
account of the capture of the Cascades, this family for some reason
known only to Spencer, was started by him down the river to their
home at Vancouver.

Meek, on seeing the family leave the Dalles, had some misgivings as
to their safe arrival at their destination, because of the excited
condition of the people about the Cascades; but Spencer seemed to
think that his own peaceable and friendly reputation, which was
widespread, would protect them; so he parted from his wife and
children with little apprehension as to their safety. In reply to
Meek's question, I stated that I had not seen Spencer's family, when
he remarked, "Well, I fear that they are gone up," a phrase used in
that country in early days to mean that they had been killed. I
questioned him closely, to elicit further information, but no more
could be obtained; for Meek, either through ignorance or the usual
taciturnity of his class, did not explain more fully, and when the
s