Ross points out also some of the troubles that the traders must meet with, which troubles were largely due, of course, to the absolute inability of the Indians to comprehend the conditions of this new life. The Indians asked for everything that they saw and berated the traders because their requests were not complied with. They were constantly playing jokes--or what they considered jokes--on the white men, which were irritating enough; and looked with contempt on the whites who were engaged in ordinary labor, which they, of course, did not in the least understand. The Indians, with all their freedom, were far from happy, because they were in a state of constant anxiety and alarm. People who felt themselves injured were likely to make war excursions and kill some one belonging to another tribe, which, of course, extended the field of the trouble.
When fighting took place, and people supposedly friendly to the whites were injured, the traders were blamed, because they sold guns, powder, and balls to any one who might wish to trade with them. The life of the trader was thus one of anxiety, and to handle the Indians successfully called for extraordinary self-control.
Not long before this time some Shahaptians had killed two of Kittson’s men and several Snakes. The Snakes followed them, but before overtaking them came upon some Indians belonging to the Walla Walla, camped not three miles from Fort Nez Percés, where they killed a man, four women, and two children, and captured two young women and a man. The next day the whole Walla Walla camp moved down to the fort, carrying the bodies of the dead. Ross saw the disorderly procession coming on with shrieks and lamentations, and at first did not know what to make of the advance, but presently the Indians reached the gate of the fort, placed their dead upon the ground there, and began to gash themselves with knives in the old-time way of mourning. They called to Ross to come out to them, and he, while very reluctant, had no choice--if he was to retain his influence with them--but to obey.
“Turning round to the sentinel at the door, I told him to lock the gate after me, and keep a sharp look out. The moment I appeared outside the gate, so horrible was the uproar, that it baffles all description. Intoxicated with wrath and savage rage, they resembled furies more than human beings; and their ghastly, wild, and forbidding looks were all directed towards me, as if I had been the cause of their calamity. Tam-a-tap-um the chief then coming up to me, and pointing to one of the dead bodies, said, ‘You see my sister there,’ then uncovering the body to show the wounds, added, ‘That is a ball hole.’ ‘The whites’, said he again, ‘have murdered our wives and our children. They have given guns and balls to our enemies. Those very guns and balls have killed our relations.’ These words were no sooner uttered than they were repeated over and over again by the whole frantic crowd; who, hearing the chief, believed them to be true. Excitement was now at its height. Their gestures, their passionate exclamations, showed what was working within, and I expected every moment to receive a ball or an arrow. One word of interruption spoken by me at the critical moment, in favour of the whites, might have proved fatal to myself. I therefore remained silent, watching a favourable opportunity, and also examining closely the holes in the garments of the dead bodies. The holes I was convinced were made by arrows, and not by balls as the chief had asserted; but it remained for me to convince others when an opportunity offered.