from the Warm Springs Reservation thirty or forty horses belonging to the Wascos and other friendly tribes on that reservation. They killed some whites last summer near Canyon City (southwest of The Dalles 160 miles), and this spring have already begun to steal and fire at white men. Some of the Wascos will desire to accompany the troops to get urgently recommended by some officers, to employ the friendly Indians as paid allies on account of their fierce hostility to the Snakes. But it may be advisable to let twenty or thirty picked Indians accompany each expedition under a select chief, beingk only provided subisstence by the United States. They would be useful as scouts and guides. If the general commanding the department should differ from me in judgment on this point, it is proper that I should state that Captain Currey says that he has seen the chiefs of several of the surrounding tribes, and that they wiould like to join us as allies in the scouts against the Snakes. General Wright may think it judicious to obtain thirty Indians to each expedition and supply them with arms and ammunition. Thirty Nez Perces, armed and organized, accompanied his expedition in the Pelouse country in 1858. Were they not paid as scouts by the quartermaster's department? I have no means of ascertaining here. General Wright of course knows. His orders in the case in reference to the whole matter are respectfully invited. It is difficult to ascertain how many warriors the Snakes can summon in that region of country-not more than 300 or 400, I think. But they would not be embodied, in all likelihood. I have supposed that two companies could operate with efficiency in that region. Depots supplied with wagons would have to be established. From those points the troops should move with pack animals. They will start expecting to pack. I should expect to order the troops to stay out the whole season, traversing so far as possible the whole region named, the only limit to the extent of their movements being the supply of subsistence; the main object to be to do what so small a force will permit toprotect the whites in exploring, trraveling, and mining in that region. Captain M. Crawford, assistant quartermaster, has been ordered to Washington, and I suppose will come out again from Omaha, Nebr. Ter., with an emigrant escort over the emigrant road. For that reason, and also because the road has not recently been infested, I do not propose to send any troops east of Fort Boise upon the emigrant road. I shall make the subject menitned in your letter of the 28th ultimo the topic of a separate dispatch. The whites are now well established in the Beaver Head country, daily exploring it more and more. Therefore any delay will only improve the chances of easily exploring at a future season from Lemhi to the Yellowstone. Moreover, Governor Wallace, Delegate from Idaho, left here expecting to get troops from the Northwestern States to occup[y the region east of the Rocky Mountains, near the headwaters of the Yellowstone. Thus I shall recommend that the instructions of the 28th ultimo be coungermanded, for I have neither troops nor transportation for such an expedition. For the other purposes detailed in this letter I may have to order the purchase of some means of transportation-perhaps fifty mules. I trust I may have the sanction of the general commanding to order the purchase of such means of transportation as may be necessary. A few infantry may be sent with each expedition as far as the wagons go as esocrts and to guard the depots.

I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

BENJ. ALVORD,

Brigadier-General, U. S. Volunteers, Commanding District.