The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1898-05-17

iouSilG IlcI uON III 10 w duldtpu anu leIt
her to 60 to school, which begun that
fatal morning, November 29th, 1917
Some days before, Mr.. Spaulding and
DIR. Whitman Lad gone over on the
Umatilla, visiting among the Indians
The doctor returned to the mission be-
fore Monday, but Spaulding heightened
his visit, and to that delay he owed his
life. For it certainly was the plan of
the Indians to include Spaulding in the
general slaughter. She remembers
hearing the older people say that there
seemed to be great deal of excitement
among the Indians, and that they were
fearful of the consequences.
Eliza was in the school-room, when
about the middle of the forenoon, some
Indians came to the kitchen door and
asked for the doctor and before long a
great noise of pistol shots was heard.
In few minutes it was known that the
doctor had been shot, and he was
dragged into the dining-room still alive.
Eliza not only saw him breathe his last,
but when Mrs. Whitman went to the
sash door and said to an Indian outside,
care you doing this?" she saw her fall
by the shot he fired through the glass.
1t would be difficult matter for any
one to give a connected account of what
followed, much less child of ten.
She and some of the children went up
stairs, not that they were safer there
than anywhere else, but child-like, felt
that if they were only out of sight they
were out of danger.
One man saved his wife and children
by hiding them under the floor of an
room, in hole that had been
dug to hold vegetables. and scarcely had
he replaced them when the room was
full of Indians This proved a safe hid
ing place, after nightfall he ventured
out, taking with him his sick wife and
little children, to follow the Walla Wal
la river under cover of the bush-lined
banks to Fort Walla Walla, thirty miles
away. He urged them on by alternately
them and resting, until he de-
termined to leave them and push on
alone. When he reached the fort he
told his story to Mr.. Stanley, a gentle
man who had been travelling with his
guide through the COlville and SpoEane
Said he: '|Take my horse, "a big
American horse-'my Indian wial go
with you to help you, and here is food. !"
With this help he returned to find
his wife and children, but it was might
time when he concealed them; each
bunch OF brush looking like the other.
and sage-brush and sand did not prove
good landmarks. They dared not shout
for fear of raising an Indian. They
until they were discouraged.
they had already been found
by Indians and murdered, or worse,
taken captive, when the guide said he
would try again, and he was rewarded
by finding them more dead than alive.
The Indian took two of the children on
his horse, while the husband held his
wife in his arms on Mr.. Stsnley's
horse and thus they made their way in
safety over that long thirty miles.
But to relate this incident wauld he
to digress from my story.
The Indians down stairs called to the
children hidden above to come down,
which they did, expecting to meet the
late OF Mrs. Whitman. Eliza, who was
the only person left that could speak
the Nez Penee language, heard one of
5he leaders say, eve wont kiln the
women and children now"
Although the Indians were Caymses
he Nez Peree Language was the one
spoken incommen between whites and
Indians. The kez Perce was EIiza7s
and she was the only
Interpreter between the murdereus
cayuses and the helpless women and
hildren.. But one man, the miller, was
pared during the three weeks of cap
ivity which followed.
During the, week Eliza was daily ex