buffalo ranges, where the Comanches, the Apaches, and
the Southern Shoshones will often go by bands of thousands, the
generality of the Indians enter the path in a kind of _echelonage_
that is to say, supposing the Shoshones to send two thousand men
against the Crows, they would be divided into fifteen or twenty bands,
each commanded by an inferior chief. The first party will start for
reconnoitring. The next day the second band, accompanied by the great
chiefs, will follow, but in another track; and so on with a third,
till three hundred or three hundred and fifty are united together.
Then they will begin their operations, new parties coming to take the
place of those who have suffered, till they themselves retire to make
room for others. Every new comer brings a supply of provisions, the
produce of their chase in coming, so that those who are fighting need
be in no fear of wanting the necessaries of life. By this the reader
will see that a band of two thousand warriors, only four or five
hundred are effectually fighting, unless the number of warriors agreed
upon by the chiefs prove too small, when new reinforcements are sent
forward.

We were divided into four war-parties: one which acted against the
Bonnaxes and the Flat-heads, in the north-east; the second, against the
Cayuses and Nez-perces, at the forks of the Buona Ventura and Calumet
rivers; the third remained near the settlement, to protect it from
surprise; while the fourth, a very small one, under my father's command,
and to which I was attached, remained in or about the boat-house, at the
fishing station. Independent of these four parties, well-armed bands
were despatched into the Umbiqua country both by land and sea.

In the beginning, our warfare on the shores of the Pacific amounted
merely to skirmishes, but by-and-by, 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. We were but one hundred and six men, whilst our adversaries
mustered four hundred and eighty, and yet full one-fifth of their number
were destroyed in one afternoon, during a desperate attack which they
made upon the Post, which had been put into an admirable state of
defence.

The roof had been covered with sheets of copper, and holes had been
open