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to return if practicable to Fort Dalles, where a properly mounted party would be organized*to assist our efforts. Hence at night we retraced our steps to the top of the mountain near us, and allowed the men rest, and next morning fell back towards Fort Dalles, skirmishing with the Indians until nearly sundown. We lost five killed and seventeen wounded, and brought the wounded in safely, also the corpse of the gallant Commissary Sergeant Mulholland, who fell in the last bayonet charge.
I may here introduce, I hope without impropriety, a letter from Father Pandosy, of the Society of Oblates of the Immaculate Mary, of the Eoman Catholic Mission in the Yakima Country, in regard to the number of Indians.
To'Major Hcdler:
Major : I had jnst returned from the Sound when you reached the Tapinnish. I found the Indians irritated in an excessive degree, I endeavored to calm their spirits, and for this purpose I sent expressesj to all the Camps to endeavor to induce the Chiefs to repair to my mission, representing to them that it was to their greatest interest to make peace. A good many who heard my message came, but the great majority were expecting that the moment had come to measure their strength with the white people, particularly the people of Kami-arken and the Klikatats, the great authors of the war ; the Klikatats have always made the Indians of this vicinity believe the Americans were cowardly and entirely inexperienced in the art of war, that in the war with the Shastas the Americans were defeated, and were obliged to employ their arms (those of the Klikatats) to make good their retreat, the Klikatats, I say, could not be restrained, and the spies sent by Kamiarken to examine the' movements of the soldiers at the Dalles returned at the same time to the camp of Kamiarken and reported you were coming with a considerable force to ensnare in a net (prendre dans un piege) all the Chiefs. That you wished to speak them fair, and thus induce them to visit your camp, when you would seize and hang Te-i-as and his son, Owvrai and his son, Kamiarken, Shawawai and his son, Sklon and all the people who have influence. Some moments after, two or three Klikatats came into tne camp of Kamiarken and announced your .arrival at the "Assum," and (so close to them) that you had gotten in between the front and the rear of their party while advancing. These Klikatats came from Kamas Lake and Vancouver, and in their report they enlarged upon the report of the spies, saying that on their route they had been attacked several times, by 500 soldiers who had come from Vancouver to join you,, and with the intention to increase the irritation of Kamiarken, they added that his great friend Tamiatas had been taken and hung. On this news Kamiarken immediately sent expresses to all the Camps to