In 1855 the great war broke out almost simultaneously at different points. There were six widely scattered regions especially concerned. Four of these, the Cascades, the Yakima Valley, the Walla Walla, and the Grande Ronde, were on or adjacent to the River. The others were the Rogue River region and Puget Sound. So wide was the area of this war that intelligent co-operation among the Indians proved impracticable. This, in fact, was the thing that saved the whites. For there were probably not less than four thousand Indians on the war-path, and if they had co-operated, the smaller settlements, possibly all in the country except those in the Willamette Valley, might have been annihilated. The first efforts of Governor Stevens were to secure treaties with the Indians. Having negotiated several treaties in 1854 with the Puget Sound Indians, the governor passed over the Cascade Mountains to Walla Walla in May, 1855. There during the latter part of May and first part of June, he held a great council with representatives of seventeen tribes. Lieutenant Kip, U. S. A., has preserved a vivid account of this great gathering, one of the most important ever held in the annals of Indian history. According to Lieutenant Kip, there were but about fifty men in the escort of the daring governor, and if he had been a man sensible to fear he might well have been startled when there came an army of twenty-five hundred Nez Perces under Halhaltlossot, known as Lawyer by the whites. Two days later three hundred Cayuses, those worst of the Columbia River Indians, surly and scowling, led by Five Crows and Young Chief, made their appearance. Two days later a force of two thousand Yakimas, Umatillas, and Walla Wallas came in sight under Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox. The council was soon organised. Governor Stevens and General Palmer, the latter the Indian Agent for Oregon, set forth their plan of reservations, all their speeches being translated and retranslated until they had filtered down among the general mass of the Indians. Then there must be a great "wawa," or discussion by the Indians. It soon became apparent that there were two bitterly contesting parties. One was a large faction of Nez Perces led by Lawyer, who favoured the whites. The other faction of the Nez Perces, with all the remaining tribes, were set against any treaty. With remarkable skill and patience, Governor Stevens, with the powerful assistance of Lawyer, had brought the Indians to a point of general agreement to the creation of a system of reservations. But suddenly there was a commotion. Into the midst of the council there burst the old chief Looking Glass (Apashwahayikt), second only to Lawyer in influence among the Nez Perces. He had made a desperate ride of three hundred miles in seven days, following a buffalo hunt and a raid against the Blackfeet, and as he now burst into the midst, there dangled from his belt the scalps of several slaughtered Blackfeet.