Doubt and uncertainty as to the fate of my father and our own fate was almost worse than death.  The day wore on.  Would father never return—­had he been killed? were the questions whispered one with another.  My mother alone was confident, relying on father’s discretion and the further fact that he was riding the swiftest horse in the Territory.  At last near sunset we descried him galloping leisurely toward home.  When within a short distance he settled into a walk, and we then knew that the danger, at least for the present, was not imminent.  The only emotion manifested by my mother was a stray tear that coursed down her pale and trouble-worn cheek.  My father reported a false alarm, originating in the overwrought imagination of settlers on the exposed margin of the valley.

At other times the alarm came from the west side of the river.  Fears were entertained that the savages from the south would cross over the Calapooya mountains and attack the settlements in Lane county.  One settler had a large bass drum, and the beating of this, which could be heard for miles, was the signal of danger.  More than once the deep roll of the drum roused the country, only to discover that it was a false alarm.  But these constant alarms were trying indeed, especially on the timid and nervous, and women became almost hysterical on the most trivial occasions.

Time wore on, and at length the news came of the defeat of Col.  Ross’ volunteers and Capt.  Smith’s dragoons.  Many were killed with no compensating advantage to the whites.  Among the number killed was one of our neighbor boys, John Gillispie, son of a minister, and my father and mother went over to their home to convey the sad news and to render such poor consolation to the parents as was possible.  Every family in the land had one or more of its members with the troops, and any day might bring tidings of death or even worse.  Hence there was a close bond of sympathy between all.  Happily, the death of young Gillispie was to be the only one to visit our neighborhood.

The stay-at-homes, those gallant (?) soldiers who fight their battles with their mouths, were loud in fault finding and severe in censure of those in command, and would tell how the battle should have been fought and how not.  This was especially true of the one-horse politicians, too cowardly to go to the front, and of disgruntled politicians.  To the shame of our common humanity be it said, there were not wanting those who sought to coin the very blood of the brave men at the front, and these ghouls and vampires talked loudest when the war was at length brought to a close, to be quoted in after years as history by Bancroft and others.

Chief John adopted a Fabian policy from the first.  He would disappear with his warriors, hiding away in the deep recesses of the mountains only to appear again when and where least expected, but towards the close of 1856 his people grew tired of war.  They said the more men they killed the more came and took their places, and in spite of John and Limpy they determined to sue for peace.  The terms were finally agreed upon, and John and Limpy, deserted but not conquered, at last surrendered.