Executive Committee, with David Hill and Alanson Beers. CHAPTER XXVIII. Lee and Hines explore the Umpqua River.--Hines tells a story.--Massacre and plunder of Smith's party by the Indians.--Sympathy of the Hudson's Bay Company.--Extract from the San Francisco _Bulletin_. The reader is requested to note the statements that follow, as they show influences operating that tell how active the enemies of the Protestant missions had been. Mr. Hines admits that he owed his own and Mr. Lee's life to the wife of Guinea. (See his journal, page 109.) He says: "During the evening Mr. Guinea came to us considerably excited, and warmly congratulated us on the safe guardianship his wife had exercised over us in our absence. He said that in all probability we should have been robbed of all we had, if we had not lost our lives, had it not been for the faithfulness of his wife and her brother. He told us that one of the chiefs of the clan we had visited was at the fort. Learning that we designed to visit his people on the coast, _excited with the utmost fear_, he hastened down the river and reported many evil things about us, intending thereby to instigate the Indians to prevent us from going among them." Mr. Hines, can you vouch for the truth of this statement? I believe sincerely you have told the truth, for you even attempt to excuse the Indian for his fears, and have not the least suspicion of the sources from which the Indian received his instruction and is made to believe that you and Mr. Jason Lee had come with your _medicine bag_ to destroy them. Let us hear Mr. Hines' excuse for the Indian's fears, in his own words. He says: "Mr. Lee had brought a fowling-piece with him, and had in his possession a patent shot-pouch. This was the thing that had alarmed the chief. One story he told was, that we had brought _medicine in a bag_ that Mr. Lee wore on his neck, for the purpose of killing them all off; and that if we were permitted to come among them the fatal bag would be opened and they would all be destroyed." How did these Indians learn about the missionary medicine bag? Our good friend, Guinea, Mr. Hines tells us, is from Montreal, and of a good family,--a Frenchman. This trip, it seems, was made in 1840, about the 26th day of October. Dr. Whitman had not yet gone to the States, but the medicine-bag story is tried with the Indians on the Umpqua. Guinea has a little too much sense of moral responsibility to allow his Indians to commence the slaughter of Lee and Hines, as Dr. White had come with them and seen them safe at the fort, and had returned to the settlement. The medicine man of the Methodist Mission had escaped, and it was not best to commence on these preachers. Madam _Siwash_ Guinea must accompany them, to watch and explain matters and protect them.