He undertook the cure of the wife of one Charlie, and the poor thing endured his remedies patiently. But the woman grew worse and worse. Charlie and his friends debated the case, and at last concluded that, if the medicine-man could not cure the woman according to his contract, and that she died, it would prove to them that the doctor was a humbug, and deserved to die the death. The catastrophe arrived, for the woman died. A council was held, and due inquiry made. The decision was fatal to the doctor, and Charlie and two friends undertook to secure that no one else should be misled and defrauded by the quack. Proceeding to his house, away up north by Salmon River, near the sea-coast, the three fell on the medicine-man with clubs, and, despite threats, prayers, and entreaties, they beat him to death. The news soon spread, and was carried to the ears of the agent. I can not help confessing to a half sympathy with the murderers, though I am fully aware of the enormity of the crime. It would be a satisfaction to feel justified in conscience in calling for a bodily expiation of the false pretenses and ignorant mummeries that did one's wife to death. And I hear that the Indians in question, while acknowledging that they knew they were sinning against the laws that governed life on the reservation, yet evidently had no consciousness of intrinsic wrong. However, they were arrested by the agent, and carried off to Fort Vancouver for detention and trial. Hence they escaped, but were pursued by the soldiers. One, being caught, refused to submit, and was shot by the corporal in charge of the party in the act of flight; the others were recaptured, and what their fate is or will be I do not yet know. But, as one stands on the beach at Newport, and sees a long string of wagons and teams coming down from the reservation for supplies, each in charge of its owner, a respectable-looking Indian, it is impossible not to wish for them the separate life and property they themselves desire. The number of Indians on the Siletz reserve is most variously stated; the estimates range between twenty-four hundred and four hundred. I should fancy the truth to be nearer the smaller than the larger figures. It is obvious that the conditions of life, the stage of civilization, the state of education, the desire or readiness to acquire or own separate and individual property, must vary in every reservation. It is impossible to apply the same rules to each, and I do not presume even to have an opinion regarding reservations other than the one in our immediate neighborhood. [Sidenote: _POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE AGENT._]