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When, in the meeting of a great council, I apprised the tribe of the attack made upon the boat-house by the Umbiquas, and of its results, there was a loud burst of satisfaction. I was made a War-Chief on the spot; and it was determined that a party should immediately proceed to chastise the Umbiquas.
The two ladders were fixed against one of the towers, and an Indian ascended upon each; at first they cast an inquisitive glance through the holes upon both sides of the door, but we concealed ourselves. Then all the Umbiquas formed in a circle round the ladders, with their bows and spears, watching the loop-holes.
I had scarcely closed my eyes, when I heard the dull regular noise of the axe upon trees. I looked cautiously; the sounds proceeded from the distance, and upon the shores of the river, and behind the camp of the savages, dark forms were moving in every direction, and we at last discovered that the Umbiquas were making ladders to scale the upper doors of our little towers.
These three combined nations, after a desultory warfare, gave way before the second war-party; and the Bonnaxes, being now rendered desperate by their losses and the certainty that they would be exterminated if the Shoshones should conquer, joined the Callapoos and Umbiquas, to make one more attack upon our little garrison.
There were no Pale-faces among them, none! Owato Wanisha was there, but he had a red skin, and his hair was black; so were his two fathers, but they were looking young; so was his aged and humble friend, but his limbs seemed to have recovered all the activity and vigour of youth; so were his two young friends, who have fought so bravely at the Post, when the cowardly Umbiquas entered our grounds.
During this time, the expedition against the Umbiquas had been still more successful than that against the Crows, and, in fact, that year was a glorious one for the Shoshones, who will remember it a long while, as a period in which leggings and moccasins were literally sewn with human hair, and in which the blanched and unburied bones of their enemies, scattered on the prairie, scared even the wolves from crossing the Buena Ventura.
"Crows, Umbiquas, and Flat-heads, Cayuses, Bonnaxes, and Callapoos can hunt all together, and rest together; they are the blackbirds and the parrots; they must do so, else the eagle should destroy them during the day, or the hedgehog during the night. "Now, Owato Wanisha, or his Manitou, has offered a bold thing.
At the very moment they were untying the canoe, there was a flash and two sharp reports; the Indians fell down they were dead. Our two scouts, who were concealed behind some bushes, then appeared, and began coolly to take the scalps, regardless of a shower of arrows from the yelling and disappointed Umbiquas.
Let me wind up this tale of slaughter. The Umbiquas fell headlong on the ambush, by which four more of them were killed; the remainder dispersed in the prairie, where they tried in vain to obtain a momentary refuge in the chasms. Before mid-day they were all destroyed, except one, who escaped by crossing the river.
In the beginning, our warfare on the shores of the Pacific amounted merely to skirmishes, but by-and-bye, the Callapoos having joined the Umbiquas with a numerous party, the game assumed more interest. We not only lost our advantages in the Umbiqua country, but were obliged little by little to retire to the Post; this, however, proved to be our salvation.
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