PROUD BEARING OF THE PRISONERS.



the guard, in their transit down the Columbia, the proud
savage rejected it with scorn.
  "What sort of heart have you," he asked, "that you
offer food to me, whose hands are red with your brother's
blood ?"
  And this, after eleven years of missionary labor, was all
the comprehension the savage nature knew of the main
principle of Christianity, forgiveness, or charity toward
our enemies.
  At Oregon City, Meek had many conversations with
them. In all of these they gave but one explanation of
their crime. They feared that Dr. Whitman intended
with the other whites, to take their land from them; and
they were told by Jo Lewis, the half-breed, that the Doc-
tor's medicine was intended to kill them off quickly, in
order the sooner to get possession of their country. None-
of them expressed any sorrow for what had been done;
but one of them, Ki-am-a-sump-kin, declared his inno-
cence to the last.
  In conversations with others, curious to gain some
knowledge of the savage moral nature, Te-lou-i-kite often
puzzled these students of Indian ethics. When ques-
tioned as to his motive for allowing himself to be taken,
Te-lou-i-kite answered:
  "Did not your missionaries tell us that Christ died to
save his people? So die we, to save our people !"
  Notwithstanding the prisoners were pre-doomed to
death, a regular form of trial was gone through. The
Prosecuting Attorney for the Territory, A. Holbrook, con-
ducted the prosecution: Secretary Pritchett, Major Run-
nels, and Captain Claiborne, the defence. The fee of-
fered by the chiefs was fifty head of horses. Whether it
was compassion, or a love of horses which animated the



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