In 1872 Smohalla’s followers along the Columbia were reported to number 2,000, and his apostles were represented as constantly traveling from one reservation to another to win over new converts to his teachings. Repeated efforts had been made to induce them to go on the reservations in eastern Oregon and Washington, but without success. We are told now that— They have a new and peculiar religion, by the doctrines of which they are taught that a new god is coming to their rescue; that all the Indians who have died heretofore, and who shall die hereafter, are to be resurrected; that as they will then be very numerous and powerful, they will be able to conquer the whites, recover their lands, and live as free and unrestrained as their fathers lived in olden times. Their model of a man is an Indian. They aspire to be Indians and nothing else.... It is thought by those who know them best that they can not be made to go upon their reservations without at least being intimidated by the presence of a military force. (_Comr., 17._) We hear but little more of Smohalla and his doctrines for several years, until attention was again attracted to Indian affairs in the northwest by the growing dissatisfaction which culminated in the Nez Percé war of 1877. The Nez Percés, especially those who acknowledged the leadership of Chief Joseph, were largely under the influence of the Dreamer prophets, and there was reason to believe that an uprising inaugurated by so prominent a tribe would involve all the smaller tribes in sympathy with the general Indian belief. As soon therefore as it became evident that matters were approaching a crisis, a commission, of which General O. O. Howard was chief, was appointed to make some peaceable arrangement with the so-called “renegades” on the upper Columbia. The commissioners met Smohalla and his principal men at Wallula, Washington territory, on April 23, 1877, and as a result of the council then held these non-treaty tribes, although insisting as strongly as ever on their right to live undisturbed in their own country, yet refrained from taking part in the war which broke out a few weeks later.