investigation proved, for disappointment instigated a most thorough
search. The Indians said the rats understood Chinook, and that as
they had no wish to accompany the dead across the ocean to the happy
hunting-grounds, they took to the woods for safety. However that may
be, I have no doubt that the preceding visits to the burial-ground,
and our long talk of the day before, with the unusual stir and
bustle, had so alarmed the rats that, impelled, by their suspicious
instincts, they fled a danger, the nature of which they could not
anticipate, but which they felt to be none the less real and
impending.




CHAPTER VII.

LEARNING THE CHINOOK LANGUAGE--STRANGE INDIAN
CUSTOMS--THEIR DOCTORS--SAM PATCH--THE MURDER OF A
WOMAN--IN A TIGHT PLACE--SURPRISING THE INDIANS--CONFLICTING
REPORTS OF THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN--SECESSION QUESTION IN
CALIFORNIA--APPOINTED A CAPTAIN--TRANSFERRED TO THE EAST.

The troubles at the Siletz and Yaquina Bay were settled without
further excitement by the arrival in due time of plenty of food, and
as the buildings, at Fort Haskins were so near completion that my
services as quartermaster were no longer needed, I was ordered to
join my own company at Fort Yamhill, where Captain Russell was still
in command. I returned to that place in May, 1857, and at a period a
little later, in consequence of the close of hostilities in southern
Oregon, the Klamaths and Modocs were sent back to their own country,