return of the detachments of Captain Small and Lieutenant McCall, then absent. These detachments joined September 22, when the expedition moved down to the foot of the mountain on the north side and encamped at Alder Creek September 24. The near approach of cold weather and the absence of any kind of shelter for the troops other than tents at Camp Watson rendered it necessary that Captain Small's company should be relieved at once, that necessary steps might be taken to prepare their camp for winter. This was accordingly done on the 25th of September. Our surplus commissary stores and every article of property in the quartermaster's and commissary departments not absolutely needed on the march to The Dalles was transferred to Lieutenant John F. Noble, acting assistant quartermaster and acting commissary of subsistence at Camp Watson, and our surplus transportation sent to Fort Dalles. According to the original instructions arrangements were to be made for the return of the expedition to Fort Dalles by the 15th of October. With this purpose in view the command, now reduced to Company D and the detachment of Company B, with transportation reduced to five teams, broke up the camp on Alder Creek on October 4 and started for The Dalles. At Bridge Creek October 5 authority was received by letter from headquarters District of Oregon for the expedition to move forward to The Dalles with dispatch. Accordingly the march was accomplish in eight days, and the command arrived at Fort Dalles on the 11th of October after an absence of six months, less a few days.

At the close of a long and arduous campaign it become me to speak of the troops which I have had the honor to command. For them I have none but words of praise. Without the opportunities of personal distinction that mark the history of more serious warfare, they have been patient and enduring in long and fatiguing marches over a mountain and desert country, have and vigilanger, and obedient always. Instinctively observing a high standard of discipline, every kind of service was performed with alacrity, as a matter of duty unmixed with hopes of reward. They are entitled to the highest commendation. The district of country explored by the expedition lies between the paralles of 42 deg. 30' and 44 deg. 30' north latitude, and between 118 deg. and 121 deg. west longitude, and is inhabited by a few bands and some scattered families of Snake Indians, who roam over a was expanse of mountain and desert unmolested. It would be difficult to estimate their numbers. Migratory in their habits and averse to intercourse with white men or other tribes of Indians, not much is known of them. Of these bands Po-li-ni's is the largest and most formidable to the white settlements, numbering probably fifty or sixty fighting men, and some women and children - it would be impossible to day how many - and is composed in part of Snake Indians proper, who have united themselves under able leadership for the purposes of plunder, and in part of renegades from other tribes actuated by a like motive. Their home is the upper part of the Crooked River Valley, shifted occasionally to other localities to suit their nomadic tastes and to seek shelter and protection for the families and stolen property after an incursion in the settlements. These are the Indians who have committed the depredations on the Canyon City road, John Day's River, and the Warm Springs Reservation within the past two years. Some other small parties of a few families each, roaming over the country, live concealed in the most rugged and inaccessible places to be found, are possessed of the instructs of the wolf or panther more than those of humanity, rendering all efforts to hunt them from their lairs almost futile. Lieutenant Waymire found in April last at the