to be rude. Land ownership dispute The Cayuse allowed construction of the mission, in the belief that Parker's promises still held. During the summer of 1837, a year after construction had started, the Whitmans were called upon to make due payment. The chief who owned the surrounding land was named Umtippe. Whitman balked at his demands and refused to fulfill the agreement, insisting that the land had been granted to him free of charge. Umtippe returned the following winter to again demand payment, along with medical attention for his sick wife. He informed Whitman that "Doctor, you have come here to give us bad medicines; you come to kill us, and you steal our lands. You had promised to pay me every year, and you have given me nothing. You had better go away; if my wife dies, you shall die also." Cayuse men continued to complain to HBC traders of Whitman's refusal to pay for using their land and of his preferential treatment of incoming white colonists. In particular, the Cayuse leader impeded Gray's cutting of timber intended for various buildings at Waiilatpu. He demanded payment for the lumber and firewood gathered by the missionaries. These measures were intended to delay the use of the wood resources, as a settler in the Willamette Valley had suggested to the noble that he would establish a trading post in the vicinity. During 1841, Tiloukaikt kept his horses within the Waiilatpu farm, earning Whitman's enmity as the horses destroyed the maize crop. Whitman claimed that the farmland was specifically for the mission and not for roving horses. Tiloukaikt told the doctor " ... that this was his land, that he grew up here and that the horses were only eating up the growth of the soil; and demanded of me what I had ever paid him for the land." Aghast at the demands, Whitman told Tiloukaikt that "I never would give him anything ... " During the start of 1842, Narcissa reported that the Cayuse leaders "said we must pay them for their land we lived on." A common complaint was that Whitman sold wheat to settlers, while giving none to the Cayuse landholders and demanding payment from them for using his grist mill. Conversion efforts The Catholic Church dispatched two priests in 1838 from the Red River colony to minister to the spiritual needs of both the regional Indigenous and Catholic