They feared him and his influence. There had been mutterings of discontent among the Cayuse Indians; too many whites were coming in. There was much sickness among the Indians; the measles had prevailed; with their unsanitary living and barbarous treatment of the sick many had died. They laid it all to the white settlers, and blamed those who encouraged and helped them. Good old Istikus, their faithful Indian friend of many years, had warned them that some of his people had bad hearts toward them, and begged them to go away until their hearts were good again. But how could they go. On the fatal morning when the conspiracy was brought to execution, seventy people were in the mission station, mostly women, children, and sick men worn out by long travel and exposure. It was two hundred and fifty miles to Fort Vancouver by trail or in open boats down the Columbia River. That was the only place of safety, and they could not leave all these people, nor could they take them. Moreover, Whitman still had faith in his Indians, which was partly justified by the facts, as it was proved that no Cayuse could quite bring himself to strike the first blow. But they found one more treacherous who was ready to take the Judas part in the tragedy. He was called Joe Tahamas, a half-breed Canadian, who had come to the mission station several months before hungry, sick, and half-clad. As their custom was they took him in, clothed, fed, and nursed him back to health again. After a time they found him fomenting quarrels among their people, and stirring up their evil passions in various ways. They finally procured him a place as teamster to go to the Willamette River, and hoped their troubles with him were ended. He had returned, and from after evidence, had no doubt been going through the tribe, and with a lying tongue rousing the Indians to a mad passion against their friends and benefactors. Some distant chief of the tribe had armed him with what was known as "The Charmed Tomahawk." It had long before been presented to them by the warring Sioux, in some great peace talk, and was to bring them victory and good fortune wherever it was used. After the massacre at Waiilatpui and the war following, with the banishment and partial destruction of their tribe, "The Charmed Tomahawk" became "Bad Medicine." No one wished to keep it, but with the old superstition of a living spirit in everything, they feared to destroy it, lest some greater punishment should fall upon them, and it passed from one to another as they would receive it. _The Charmed Tomahawk_