076A TRIBUTARY OF THE HARRISON.Shrubs have grown up along and over these small waterways, and as the little rivulets come coursing down, dodging hither and thither under overhanging clumps of green foliage, leaping from crag to crag and curving from right to left and from left to right, around and among frowning projections of invulnerable rock, glinting and sparkling in the sunlight, they remind one of silvery satin ribbons, tossed by a summer breeze, among the brown tresses of some winsome maiden. I took several views of these little waterfalls, but their transcendent beauty can not be intelligently expressed on a little four-by-five silver print.Several larger streams also put into the Harrison, that come from remote fastnesses, and seem to carve their way through great mountains of granite. Their shores are lined with dense growths of conifers, and afford choice retreats for deer, bears, and other wild animals.At three o'clock in the afternoon we rounded a high point of rocks that jutted out into the river, and another beautiful picture—another surprise, in this land of surprises—lay before us. Harrison Lake, nestling among snowy peaks and dotted with basaltic islands, reflected in its peaceful depths thesurrounding mountains as clearly as though its placid surface had been covered with quicksilver. This lake is about forty miles long, is fed by the Lillooet river and numerous smaller streams. Silver creek, which comes in on the west side, twenty miles north of the hot springs, is a beautiful mountain stream of considerable size. A quarter of a mile above its mouth, it makes a perpendicular fall of over sixty feet. It is one of the most beautiful falls in the country. Near the head of the lake, and in full view from the springs, old Mount Douglass, clad in perpetual snow and glacial ice, towers into the blue sky until its brilliancy almost dazzles one's eyes. Though forty miles away, one who did not know would estimate the distance at not more than five, so clearly are all the details of the grand picture shown. It is said that from the glaciers on this peak come the streams whose waters give their peculiar milky cast to Harrison Lake and Harrison river. Near the base of Mount Douglass is an Indian village of the same name, and the Hudson Bay Fur Company formerly had a trading post in the neighborhood, which they called Fort Douglass. This Indian village is the home of my prospective guide, and from it he has adopted his unpoetic cognomen.Half a mile to the right of where we entered the lake, the famous hot springs, already mentioned, boil out from under the foot of a mountain, and discharge their steaming fluid into the lake. The curative power of these waters has been known to the natives for ages past, and the sick have come from all directions, and from villages many miles away, to bathe in the waters and be healed. All about theplace are remains of Indian encampments, medicine lodges, etc. The tribes in this vicinity are greatly exercised over the fact of the white man having lately asserted ownership of their great sanitarium, and having assumed its control. Mr. J. R. Brown has erected over the springs a large bath-house, and near that a commodious hotel. He has cut a road through a pass in the mountains to Agassiz station, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, five miles distant, so that the springs may now be easily reached by invalids wishing to test their curative properties. Soon after my arrival at the springs, I climbed the mountain to the east of the hotel, and passed the time pleasantly, until sunset, viewing the beautiful scenery in the neighborhood.On the following morning I took a boat and rowed up the east shore of the lake, in hope of getting a shot at a deer, but though I saw plenty of fresh signs all along the shore no game was visible. I spent the afternoon looking anxiously for my promised guide, but he came not. I again amused myself, however, taking views of the scenery, but found on developing the negatives that I had not been eminently successful with either Mount Douglass or Mount Chiam. Snowy mountains are about the most difficult objects in all nature to photograph, especially if you attempt to include anything beside the snowy peaks in the picture; for they are so intensely white, and the sky or even clouds that form the background are so light and afford so slight contrast, that it is next to impossible to get good sharp pictures of them. The landscape about the mountains is sure to offer some dark objects, perhaps deep shadows, and even the mountain itselfnearly always has bare rocks and dark, gloomy cañons, and to get these and the dazzling whiteness of the snow and ice on the same plate is decidedly difficult. Of course we see many fine photographs of snow-covered mountains, but if taken with a clear sky or with light clouds for background, there is generally more or less retouching necessary, and more or less doctoring in printing, with tissue paper, glass screens, etc., in order to obtain the results we see in the prints. I made some fair views of both these peaks, but not such as an enthusiastic amateur might wish. Of the lower mountains, where at that time there was no snow, of the lake, the islands, etc., I got very satisfactory pictures. I went up the road, toward the railway station, a mile or more, where it passes through one of those grand forests for which this country is so famous, where—"Those green-robed senators of mighty woodsDream, and so dream all night without a stir."There I made views of some of the giant cedars, the dense moss-hung jungles, the great fir trees, etc. In these dark, densely-shaded woods I had to take off the flying shutter and make time exposures. I gave three to five seconds to each plate. In the prints the trees and other objects nearest to the lens are of course over-exposed, but the details in the shadows and objects in the extreme distance are clearly and beautifully brought out. For these time exposures I placed the camera on some convenient log, stump, or stone, in lieu of a tripod. In two instances I seated the rear end of the instrument on the ground, with the lens bearing up through the tops of the trees. The whitened trunk and broken, straggling arms ofone great old dead fir—one that has flourished in this rich soil and drawn sustenance from the moist, ozone-laden atmosphere of these mountains for hundreds of years, but has lived out his time and is now going the way of all things earthly—forms the subject of one of the best and most interesting pictures of the whole series. The tops of several other trees—birch, maple, etc., that stood near the fir—are also shown in the picture. It can best be seen and appreciated by holding it above your head, looking up at it, and imagining yourself there in the forest, looking up through the tops of the giant trees into the blue ethereal dome of heaven.081CHAPTER IX.Nthe morning I got up early to look for Douglass Bill, thinking and hoping he might have landed during the night, but no one had seen him and there was no strange canoe in the harbor. After breakfast, in order to kill time, I climbed the mountain east of the hotel to a height of about a thousand feet. It is heavily timbered, and I found plenty of fresh deer-signs within plain sound of the hammers wielded by the carpenters at work on the hotel, but failed to get a shot. I returned at eleven o'clock, but Bill had not yet shown up. Three other Indians were there, however, with three deer in their canoe, which they had killed on the opposite side of the lake the day before. I now concluded that Mr. Major's confidence in Bill was misplaced; that he was not going to keep his contract, and was, in short, as treacherous, as unreliable, and as consummate a liar as other Indians; so I entered into negotiations with these three Indians to get one or two of them to go with me. But they had planned a trip to New Westminster, to sell their venison, and I could not induce any one of them to go, though I offered big wages, and a premium on each head of game I might kill, besides. They said that if I wished they would take me to their village—whichis five miles down the river—and that there were several good goat hunters there whom I could get. I accepted their offer of transportation, stepped into the canoe, and we pulled out. As we entered the shoal water in the river I asked for a pole, and impelled by it and the three paddles we sped down the stream at a rapid rate.There was a cold, disagreeable rain falling and a chilly north wind blowing. This storm had brought clouds of ducks into the river, among them several flocks of canvas backs. The Indians, who were using smooth-bore muskets, killed several of these toothsome fowls. One flock rose ahead of us and started directly down the river, but by some kind of native intuition the Indians seemed to know that they would come back up the opposite shore. They dropped their guns, caught up the paddles and plied them with such force that every stroke fairly lifted the light cedar canoe out of the water, and we shot across the river with the speed of a deer. Sure enough, after flying a hundred yards down stream the ducks turned and, hugging the shore, undertook to pass up the river on the other side, but we cut them off, so that they had to pass over our heads. At this juncture the two muskets carried by the two young men cracked and three canvas backs dropped, limp and lifeless, into the water within a few feet of us.We arrived at the hut occupied by this family at noon. It stands on the bank of the river, half a mile above the village of Chehalis, and as we pulled up, two old and two young squaws and nine small Indians, some of them mere papooses in arms (but notin long clothes—in fact, not in any clothes worth mentioning), came swarming out to meet us. Their abode was a shanty about twelve feet square, made by setting four corner posts into the ground, nailing cross-ribs on, and over these clapboards riven from the native cedars, and the roof was of the same material. The adult members of this social alliance had been engaged in catching and drying salmon during the recent run; the heads, entrails and backbones of which had been dumped into the river at their very door. There being no current near the shore they had sunk in barely enough water to cover them, and lay there rotting and poluting the water used by the family for drinking and cooking. Cart-loads of this offal were also lying about the dooryard, and had been trampled into and mixed up with the mud until the whole outfit stunk like a tanyard.Within was a picture of filth and squalor that beggars description. The floor of the hut was of mother earth. A couple of logs with two clapboards laid across them formed the only seats. On one side was a pile of brush, hay, and dirty, filthy blankets, indiscriminately mixed, on which the entire three families slept, presumably in the same fashion. Near the centre of the hut a small fire struggled for existence, and that portion of the smoke that was not absorbed by the people, the drying fish and other objects in the room, escaped through a hole in the centre of the roof. The children, barefooted and half-naked, came in out of the rain, mud, and fish carrion, in which they had been tramping about, and sat or lay on the ground about the fire, looking as happy as a litter of pigs in a mud hole. On poles, attachedby cedar withes to the rafters, were hung several hundred salmon, absorbing smoke, carbonic acid gas from the lungs of the human beings beneath, and steam from the cooking that was going on. It is understood that after this process has been prolonged for some weeks these once noble fishes will be fit for the winter food of the Siwash.Some of the houses in Chehalis are neat frame cottages; in fact, it is a better-built town, on the whole, than the village of Harrison River already described; but these better houses all stand back about a quarter of a mile from the river, and the inhabitants have left them and gone into the "fish-houses," the clapboard structures, on the immediate river bank. Some of these shanties are much larger than the one mentioned above, and in some cases four, five, or even six families hole up in one of these filthy dens during the fish-curing season.As a matter of fact, there are salmon of one variety or another in these larger rivers nearly all the year, but sometimes the weather is too cold, too wet, or otherwise too disagreable in winter for the noble red man to fish with comfort, and hence all these preparations for a rainy day. After the fishes are cured they are hung up in big out-houses set on posts, or in some cases built high up in the branches of trees, in order to be entirely out of the reach of rats, minks, or other vermin, and the members of the commune draw from the stock at will. The coast Indians live almost wholly on fish, and seem perfectly happy without flesh, vegetables, or bread, if such be not at hand, though they can eat plenty of all these when set before them. If one of them kills a deer he seldomor never eats more of it than the liver, heart, lungs, etc. He sells the carcass, if within a three days' voyage of a white man who will buy venison.086SALMON BOXES IN TREES.One of the young men already mentioned went with me down to one of the big fish-houses and called out Pean, a man about fifty years of age, who he said was a good goat hunter and a good guide. They held a hurried conversation in their native tongue, at theclose of which the young man said Pean would go with me for two dollars a day. I asked Pean if he could talk English, and he said "yes," but this proved, in after experience, to be about the only English word he could speak. He rushed into the hut, and in about three or four minutes returned with his gun, powder-horn, bullet-pouch, pipe, and a small roll of blankets, and was ready for a journey into the mountains of, he knew not how many days. His canoe was on the river bank near us, and as we were stepping into it I asked him a few questions which he tried to answer in English, but made a poor stagger at it, and slid off into Chinook.Just then another old Indian came up with a canoe-load of wood. I asked him if he could speak English—"wah-wah King George"; and he said "Yes."I then told him I had hired this other man to go hunting with me and asked him if he knew him."Oh, yes," he said; "me chief here. All dese house my house. All dese people my people. No other chief here." I said I was delighted to know him, shook hands with him, gave him a cigar, and inquired his name."Captain George," he said; "me chief here.""Is he a good hunter?" pointing to Pean."Yes, Pean good hunter; good man. He kill plenty sheep, deer, bear." With this additional certificate of efficiency and good character I felt more confidence in Pean, and stepping into the canoe was once moreen routeto the mountains.Still, I felt some misgivings, for my past experience with the fish eaters had taught me not to place implicit faith in their statements or pretensions, and the sequel will show how well grounded these fears were.088CHAPTER X.HEFlathead nation, to which nearly all the Puget Sound Indians belong, may almost be termed amphibians; for though they can, and do in some cases, live inland exclusively, they are never happy when away from the water. They are canoeists by birth and education. A coast Indian is as helpless and miserable without a canoe as a plains Indian without a horse, and the Siwash (Chinook for coast Indian) is as expert in the use of the canoe as the Sioux, Crow, or Arapahoe in the use and control of his cayuse. Almost the sole means of travel, of intercommunication among these people, and between themselves and the whites, is the canoe.There are very few horses owned in any of the coast tribes, and these are rarely ridden. When a Siwash attempts to ride a horse he climbs onto it kicking and grunting with the effort, much as an Alabama negro mounts his mule, and sits him about as gracefully. But let the Siwash step into his canoe, and he fears no rapid, whirlpool, nor stormy billow. He faces the most perilous water and sendshis frail cedar shell into it with a skill and a consciousness of mastery that would put to the blush any of the prize winners in our Eastern canoe-club regattas. The canoes are models of nautical architecture. They are cut and carved from the cedar trees which bounteous Nature, in wise provision for the wants of Her children, has caused to grow so plentifully and to such prodigious size in the Sound country. They are of various sizes and lengths, owing to the uses for which they are intended. If for spearing salmon or for light traveling, they are cut from a tree twenty to twenty-four inches in diameter, and are not more than twelve to fifteen feet long. If for attending nets and bringing in the catch, they are generally longer, and if for freighting and long-distance traveling, they are of immense size and capable of carrying great burdens. A tree of the size wanted is selected, perfectly sound and free from knots, and a log of the desired length cut off. The log is hollowed, carved out to the desired shape, then trimmed and tapered outside until it is a mere shell, scarcely more than an inch thick anywhere.090AN OCCIDENTAL GONDOLA.It is then filled with water, a fire is built near in which rocks are heated and thrown into the canoe until the water boils. This is continued until the wood is thoroughly cooked and softened, when the water is turned out, the canoe is spread at the centre, braced out to nearly twice its natural width or diameter, and left to dry. This gives it "sheer" and enables it to ride a heavy sea like a lifeboat. Handsomely carved figureheads are attached to some of the large canoes, and the entire craft is painted, striped, and decorated in gay colors. Imeasured one of these cedar canoes that was thirty-four feet long and five and a half feet beam, and was told by its owner that he had carried in it four tons of freight on one trip, and two cords of green wood on another. It would carry fifty men comfortably and safely. There are not many of the Indians that can make the larger and better grade of canoes, and the trade is one that but few master.There is one famous old canoe builder near Vancouver, to whom Indians go from distances of a hundred miles or more when they want an extra fine, large, light canoe. For some specimens of his handiwork he gets as high as $80 to $100. The Indians throughout Washington Territory and British Columbia do considerable freighting for whites, on streams not navigable for steamers, and they take freight up over some of the rapids where no white man could run an empty canoe.Some of these Flatheads are industrious and are employed by the whites in salmon canneries, lumbering and logging operations, farming, etc. Steamboat men employ them almost exclusively for deck hands, and they make the best ones to be had in the country; better than either whites or Chinamen. They are excellent packers by education. In this densely-timbered country horses can not, as a rule, be used for packing, and the Indians, in going across country where there is no watercourse, pack all their plunder on their backs. Whites traveling in the woods also depend on Indians to pack their luggage; consequently it is not strange that the latter become experts at the business, and it is this schooling that makes them valuable as deck hands.They are not large men, but are tough, sinewy, and muscular. An average Siwash will pick up a barrel of flour or pork, a case of dry goods, or other heavy freight weighing three hundred pounds or more, roll it onto his back, and walk up a gang-plank or a steep river-bank as easily as a white man would with a barrel of crackers.No work is too dirty or too hard for them. They are obedient to orders and submissive to discipline, but their weak point, like that of all Indians, is their inordinate love of whisky. Quite frequently, after working a few weeks or months, they quit and go on a drunken debauch that ends only when their money is gone. Their dress is much the same, in general, as that of the whites in this region, with the exception that the Indians wear moccasins when hunting. This footgear is little in favor here with white hunters, owing to there being so much rainfall, and so much wading to do. Rubber boots are indispensable for hunting in most seasons, and a rubber coat should also be included in every hunter's outfit. I found the Hannaford ventilated rubber boot the most comfortable and perfect footgear I have ever worn. You can scarcely walk a mile in any direction in this country at any time of year, on mountains or lowlands, without encountering water. Moccasins soon become soaked, and are then the most uncomfortable things imaginable. I asked one of my guides why he did not wear rubber boots instead of moccasins, and he replied:"O, I dunno. De moxicans cheaper, mebbe. I mek him myself. Can't mek de boots."This is about the only use the Indians make ofbuckskin. It is not popular with them as a material for clothing, on account of the vast amount of rainy weather.It has been said they make cloth from the wool of the goat, but, so far as I could learn, they make very little, if any of it, of late years. I saw some blankets that Indians had woven from this wool, but they were very coarse. They have no machinery for spinning; the yarn is merely twisted by hand, and is so coarse and loose that it would not hold together a week if made into a garment and worn in the woods. Of course, a fair article of yarn, and even cloth, may be, and has been, made entirely by hand, but these people have neither the skill, the taste, nor the industry to enable them to do such work. A coarse hair grows with the wool on the goat, and the squaws do not even take the trouble to separate it, but work both up together, making a very uncouth-looking fabric, even if thick, warm, and serviceable.As a class, these Indians appear to be strictly honest, toward each other at least. They leave their canoes, guns, game, or in fact, any kind of property, anywhere they choose, without the slightest effort at concealment, and always feel perfectly sure of finding it on their return. About the only case of pilfering I ever heard of, while among them (and I took special pains to investigate) was when John asked me for some fish-hooks, and said in explanation:"I had plenty hooks, but I reckon Seemo he steal all my hooks.""Why, does Seymour steal?" I inquired. Helooked all around to see if Seymour was within hearing, and not seeing him, replied:"You bet. He steal my hooks, too."095A SIWASH AND HIS MORNING'S CATCH.096AN INDIAN SALMON FISHERY.CHAPTER XI.had left my bedding at the Hot Springs Hotel, and returning to get it staid there all night. Early next morning (Friday, November 12) we crossed Harrison Lake, in a drenching rain, to the foot of a high mountain, about two miles from the springs, on which Pean, Captain George, and other Indians said there were plenty of goats. We beached our canoe, and made up packs for the climb up the mountain. The outfit consisted of our guns, my sleeping-bag, Pean's gun and blankets, a few sea biscuits, a piece of bacon, and some salt.My sleeping-bag was wrapped up in a piece of canvas, and when I handed it to Pean, he commenced to unroll it to put his blankets in with it, but I objected. Visions of the insects with which I knew his bedding was inhabited rose up before me. I thought of the rotary drill, key-hole saw, and suction pump with which they are said to be armed, and I did not want any of them in my bag. So I unrolled the canvas only a part of its length, laid his blankets in and rolled it up again, hoping the remaining folds might prevent the vermin from finding their way in, and my reckoning proved correct. One of his blankets had been white in its day, but had long since lost its grip on that color, and wasnow about as pronounced a brunette as its owner. The other blanket was gray, but even through this sombre shade, as well as through the rank odor it emitted, gave evidence that it had not been washed for many years. Pean brought with him a cotton bedspread that had also once been white, but left this with the canoe. In my pack I carried the grub, and an extra coat for use on the mountain, where we expected to encounter colder weather.We started up the mountain at ten o'clock in the forenoon. For the first two miles we skirted its base to the eastward, through dense timber, crossing several deep, dark jungles and swamps. Then we began the ascent proper, and as soon as we got up a few hundred feet on the mountain side, we found numerous fresh deer-signs. We halted to rest, when Pean took from its case his gun, which up to this time he had kept covered, and which I naturally supposed to be a good, modern weapon. It proved, however, an old smooth bore, muzzle-loading, percussion-lock musket, of .65 calibre, with a barrel about fifty inches long. He drew out the wiping stick, on the end of which was a wormer, pulled a wad of paper from the gun and poured a charge of shot out into his hand. This he put carefully into his shot-bag. Then he took from another pouch a No. 1 buckshot, and dropped it into the muzzle of his musket. It rolled down onto the powder, when he again inserted the bunch of paper, rammed it home with the rod, put on a cap, and was loaded for bear, deer, or whatever else he mightencounter. He then replaced the musket in its sealskin cover as carefully as if it had been a $300 breech-loader.Nearly all these Indians use just such old muskets, bought from the Hudson Bay Company, and yet they keep them in covers made of the skin of the seal, which they kill in the rivers hereabout, or of deer or other animals. They take excellent care of their guns in this respect, but I have never seen one of them clean or oil his weapon, and several of them told me they seldom do so.My Winchester express, with fancy stock, Lyman sight, etc., was a curiosity to them. None of them had ever seen anything like it, and one of them asked me what kind of a rifle it was. When told it was a Winchester, he said:"I didn't know Winchester so big like dat. Didn't know he had stock like dat." He had only seen the little .44 Winchester, with a plain stock, and innocently supposed it was the only kind made.Pean and I had a hard day's work toiling up the mountain through fallen timber, over and around great ledges of jutting rock, across deep, rugged cañons and gulches, and through dense jungles of underbrush. About two o'clock in the afternoon we halted, lay down for a rest, and had been there but a few minutes when I heard the sharp, familiar chatter of the little pine squirrel. I looked around quickly, expecting to see one within a few feet of me, but instead saw Pean lying close to the ground, beckoning to me and pointing excitedly up the game trail in which we had been walking. Looking through the thick, intervening brush, I saw twodeer, a buck and a doe, looking toward us. They had not seen nor scented us, but had merely heard the chatter of the little squirrel, as they supposed, and, though apparently as completely deceived by it as I had been, they had stopped to listen, as they do at almost every sound they hear in the woods. But there was no squirrel there. Pean had taken this method of calling my attention, and had imitated the cry of the familiar little cone-eater so perfectly that even the deer had been deceived by it.I cautiously and slowly drew my rifle to my shoulder, and taking aim at the breast of the buck, fired. Both deer bounded away into thicker brush, and were out of sight in an instant. Pean sprang after them, and in a few minutes I heard the dull, muffled report of his musket. He shouted to me, and going to him I found the buck dead and the Indian engaged in butchering it. My bullet had gone a little farther to the left than I intended, breaking its shoulder, and had passed out through the ribs on the same side. The deer had fallen after going but a few yards, but was not quite dead when Pean came up and shot it through the head. We took out the entrails, cut a choice roast of the meat for our supper and breakfast, and hurried on our way.We camped at four o'clock on a small bench of the mountain, and you may rest assured, gentle reader, that our conversation in front of the camp fire that night was novel. Pean, you will remember, could not speak half a dozen words of English. He spoke entirely in Chinook, and I knew but a few words of that jargon. I had a Chinook dictionarywith me, however, and by its aid was able to pick out the few words necessary in what little talking I had to do, and to translate enough of Pean's answers to my questions to get along fairly well. The great trouble with him seemed to be that he was wound up to talk, and whenever I made a remark or asked a question in his adopted language he turned loose, and talked until I shut him off with "Halo kumtucks" (I don't understand). No matter how often I repeated this he seemed soon to forget it, and would open on me again whenever he got a cue. He was a fluent talker, and if I had only been well up in the jargon, I could have got lots of pointers from him.The deer of this region is the true black-tail (Cervus columbianus), not the mule-deer (Cervus macrotis), that is so often miscalled the black-tail. The black-tail is smaller than the mule-deer, and its ears, though not so large as those of the latter, are larger than those of the Virginia deer (Cervus virginianus). Its tail is white underneath, dark outside, shading to black at the lower end, and while longer than that of the mule-deer, is not so long as that of the Virginia deer.101CHAPTER XII.HINOOKis a queer jargon. It is said to have been manufactured many years ago by an employé of the Hudson Bay Fur Company, who taught the principal chiefs of various Indian tribes to speak it in order to facilitate traffic with them. From that time it has grown and spread until almost every Indian of the North Pacific Coast, and many inland tribes of Washington, British Columbia, and Oregon speak it. White men of all nations who live in this country speak it, and even the almond-eyed Chinaman learns it soon after locating here. In short, it is the court language of the Northwest, as the sign language is of the plains. It is made up from various Indian tongues, with a few English, or rather pigeon-English, French, and Spanish words intermixed. There are only about 1,500 words in the language and it is very easy to learn. Of course, it is woefully lacking in strength and beauty. You will often want to say something that can not be said in Chinook, because there are no words in that jargon with which to say it. But it is made to answer the purposes of trade, travel, and barter, in common forms. For instance:"Kah-tah si-ah ko-pa Frazer chuck?" would be, "How far is it to the Frazer river?""Yutes kut klat-a-wa la-pe-a," "Only a shortwalk." If you wish to say good-morning or good-evening to an Indian you say:"Kla-how-ya, six.""Chah-co yah-wa" is "Come here.""Mi-ka tik-eh mam-ook?" "Do you want to work?""Ik-ta mi-ka mam-ook?" "At what?""Mam-ook stick." "Cut some wood.""Na-wit-ka." "Certainly.""Kon-si dat-la spose mi-ka mam-ook kon-a-way o-koke stick?" "What do you want for cutting that lot of wood?""Ikt dol la." "One dollar."The numerals are ikt (one), mox (two), klone (three), lock-it (four), kwin-num (five), tagh-kum (six), sin-na mox (seven), sto te-kin (eight), twaist (nine), tah-tlum (ten), tah-tlum pee-ikt (eleven), tah-tlum pee-mox (twelve), mox-tah tlum (twenty), klone tah-tlum (thirty), ikt tali-kamo-nux (one hundred), tah-tlum to-ka mo-mik (one thousand), etc. It is often difficult to get accurate information from these Indians as to distances or time, as they have little idea of English miles or of the measurements of time, and very few of them own or know how to read a watch or clock. Under Pean's tutelage I learned rapidly, and was soon able to carry on quite an interesting conversation by the aid of the little dictionary.By the light of a rousing camp-fire I cut a large quantity of cedar boughs and made for myself a bed a foot deep. On this I spread my sleeping-bag, crawled into it and slept the sleep of the weary hunter. Pean cut only a handful of boughs, spreadthem near the fire, threw his coat over them, and lay down. Then he folded his two blankets and spread them over him, mostly on the side away from the fire, leaving that part of his body next to the fire exposed so as to catch its heat direct. During the night, whenever he turned over, he would shift his blankets so as to keep them where most needed. At frequent intervals he would get up and replenish the fire from the large supply of dry wood we had provided. The night was bitter cold, at this high altitude, and snow fell at frequent intervals. A raw wind blew, and the old man must have suffered from the cold to which he exposed himself.There are few of these savages that understand and appreciate fully the value of a good bed when camping. In fact, many white hunters and mountaineers go on long camping trips with insufficient bedding, simply because they are too lazy to carry enough to keep them comfortable. I would rather get into a good warm, soft bed at night without my supper, than eat a feast and then sleep on the hard ground, without covering enough to keep me warm. After a hard day's work a good bed is absolutely necessary to prepare one for the labor and fatigue of the following day."In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,And born in bed, in bed we die;The near approach, a bed may show,Of human bliss to human woe."Any ablebodied man may endure a few nights of cold, comfortless sleep, but it will tell on him sooner or later; while if he sleep comfortably and eatheartily, he may endure an incredible amount of labor and hardship of other kinds. You may tramp all day with your feet wet, and all your clothing wet, if need be, but be sure you crawl into a good, warm, dry bed at night.Old Pean complained of feeling unwell during the evening, and in the morning when we got up said he was sick. I prepared a good breakfast, but he could not, or at least would not, eat. Then he told me that he had once fallen down a mountain; that his breast-bone had been crushed in by striking on a sharp rock, and that it always hurt him since when doing any hard work. He said the climb up the mountain with the pack was too hard for him and he was played out, that he could go no farther.Here was another bitter disappointment, as we were yet two miles from the top of the mountain, and in going that distance a perpendicular ascent of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet must be made. I deliberated, therefore, as to whether I should go up the mountain alone and let Pean go back, but decided it would be useless. I could not carry more load than my sleeping-bag, gun, etc., and therefore could bring no game down with me if I killed it, not even a head or skin. Beside, if he went back he would take his canoe, and I would be left with no means of crossing the lake. So the only thing to be done was to pack up and retrace our steps. On our way down we stopped and took the head and skin off of the deer killed the day before, and I carried them to the canoe. Arriving at the lake, we pulled again for Chehalis in a cold, disagreeable rain. I stoppedat the hot springs on my way down, and took my leave of my host, Mr. Brown, who had been so kind to me, and who regretted my ill luck almost as much as I did.106CHAPTER XIII.Nour return to Chehalis—that town of unsavory odors and salmon-drying, salmon-smoking Siwashes—I at once employed two other Indians, named John and Seymour, and, on the following day we started up Ski-ik-kul Creek, to a lake of the same name, in which it heads ten miles back in the mountains. The Indians claimed that goats, or sheep, as they call them, were plentiful on the cliffs surrounding this lake, and that we could kill plenty of them from a raft while floating up and down along the shores. Seymour claimed to have killed twenty-three in March last, just after the winter snows had gone off, and a party of seven Siwashes from Chehalis had killed ten about two weeks previous to the date of my visit.Such glowing accounts as these built up my hopes again to such a height as to banish from my mind all recollection of the bitter disappointment in which the former expedition had ended, and, although the rain continued to fall heavily at short intervals, so that the underbrush reeked with dampness and drenching showers fell from every bush we touched, I trudged cheerily along regardless of all discomforts.The first two miles up the creek, we had a good, open trail, but at the end of this we climbed a steep,rocky bluff, about 500 feet high, and made the greater portion of the remaining distance at an average of about this height above the stream. There was a blind Indian trail all the way to the lake, but it led over the roughest, most tortuous, outlandish country that ever any fool of a goat hunter attempted to traverse. There are marshes and morasses away up among these mountains, where alders and water beeches, manzanitas, and other shrubs grow so thick that their branches intertwine to nearly their full length. Many of these have fallen down in various directions, and their trunks are as inextricably mixed as their branches, forming altogether a labyrinthine mass, through which it was with the utmost difficulty we could walk at all.There were numberless little creeks coming down from the mountain into the main stream, and each had in time cut its deep, narrow gulch, or cañon, lined on both sides with rough, shapeless masses of rock, and all these we were obliged to cross. In many cases, they were so close together that only a sharp hog-back lay between them, and we merely climbed out of one gulch 300 or 400 feet deep, to go at once down into another still deeper, and so on. Fire had run through a large tract of this country, killing out all the large timber, and many trees have since rotted away and fallen, while the blackened and barkless trunks of others, with here and there a craggy limb, still stand as mute monuments to the glory of the forest before the dread element laid it waste.We camped that night at the base of one of these great dead firs around which lay a cord or moreof old dry bark that had fallen from it, and which, with a few dry logs we gathered, furnished fuel for a rousing, all-night fire. Within a few feet of our camp, a clear, ice-cold little rivulet threaded its serpentine way down among rocks and ferns, and made sweet music to lull us to sleep. After supper, I made for myself the usual bed of mountain feathers (cedar boughs), on which to spread my sleeping-bag.This old companion of so many rough jaunts, over plains and mountains, has become as necessary a part of my outfit for such voyages as my rifle. Whether it journey by day, on the hurricane deck of a mule, in the hatchway of a canoe, on my shoulder blades or those of a Siwash, it always rounds up at night to house me against the bleak wind, the driving snow, or pouring rain. I have learned to prize it so highly that I can appreciate the sentiments of the fallen monarch, Napoleon, on the lonely island of St. Helena, when he wrote:"The bed has become a place of luxury to me. I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world."These Indians, like Pean, and, in fact, all others who have seen the bag, are greatly interested in it. They had never seen anything like it, and watched with undisguised interest the unfolding and preparing of the article, and when I had crawled into it, and stowed myself snugly away, they looked at each other, grunted and uttered a few of their peculiar guttural sounds, which I imagined would be, if translated:"Well, I'll be doggoned if that ain't about the sleekest trick I ever saw. Eh?""You bet it's nice to sleep in, but heavy to carry."110DIAGRAM OF SLEEPING-BAG.By the way, some of my readers may never have seen one of these valuable camp appendages, and a description of it may interest them. The outer bag is made of heavy, brown, waterproof canvas, six feet long, three feet wide in the centre, tapered to two feet at the head and sixteen inches at the foot. Above the head of the bag proper, flaps project a foot farther, with which the occupant's head may be completely covered, if desired. These are provided with buttons and button-holes, so that they may be buttoned clear across, for stormy or very cold weather. The bag is left open, from the head down one edge, two feet, and a flap is provided to lap overthis opening. Buttons are sewed on the bag, and there are button-holes in the flaps so it may also be buttoned up tightly. Inside of this canvas bag is another of the same size and shape, less the head flaps. This is made of lamb skin with the wool on, and is lined with ordinary sheeting, to keep the wool from coming in direct contact with the person or clothing. One or more pairs of blankets may be folded and inserted in this, as may be necessary, for any temperature in which it is to be used.If the weather be warm, so that not all this covering is needed over the sleeper, he may shift it to suit the weather and his taste, crawling in on top of as much of it as he may wish, and the less he has over him the more he will have under him, and the softer will be his bed. Beside being waterproof, the canvas is windproof, and one can button himself up in this house, leaving only an air-hole at the end of his nose, and sleep as soundly, and almost as comfortably in a snowdrift on the prairie as in a tent or house. In short, he may be absolutely at home, and comfortable, wherever night finds him, and no matter what horrid nightmares he may have, he can not roll out of bed or kick off the covers.Nor will he catch a draft of cold air along the north edge of his spine every time he turns over, as he is liable to do when sleeping in blankets. Nor will his feet crawl out from under the cover and catch chilblains, as they are liable to do in the old-fashioned way. In fact, this sleeping-bag is one of the greatest luxuries I ever took into camp, and ifany brother sportsman who may read this wants one, and can not find an architect in his neighborhood capable of building one, let him communicate with me and I will tell him where mine was made.
076
A TRIBUTARY OF THE HARRISON.
Shrubs have grown up along and over these small waterways, and as the little rivulets come coursing down, dodging hither and thither under overhanging clumps of green foliage, leaping from crag to crag and curving from right to left and from left to right, around and among frowning projections of invulnerable rock, glinting and sparkling in the sunlight, they remind one of silvery satin ribbons, tossed by a summer breeze, among the brown tresses of some winsome maiden. I took several views of these little waterfalls, but their transcendent beauty can not be intelligently expressed on a little four-by-five silver print.
Several larger streams also put into the Harrison, that come from remote fastnesses, and seem to carve their way through great mountains of granite. Their shores are lined with dense growths of conifers, and afford choice retreats for deer, bears, and other wild animals.
At three o'clock in the afternoon we rounded a high point of rocks that jutted out into the river, and another beautiful picture—another surprise, in this land of surprises—lay before us. Harrison Lake, nestling among snowy peaks and dotted with basaltic islands, reflected in its peaceful depths thesurrounding mountains as clearly as though its placid surface had been covered with quicksilver. This lake is about forty miles long, is fed by the Lillooet river and numerous smaller streams. Silver creek, which comes in on the west side, twenty miles north of the hot springs, is a beautiful mountain stream of considerable size. A quarter of a mile above its mouth, it makes a perpendicular fall of over sixty feet. It is one of the most beautiful falls in the country. Near the head of the lake, and in full view from the springs, old Mount Douglass, clad in perpetual snow and glacial ice, towers into the blue sky until its brilliancy almost dazzles one's eyes. Though forty miles away, one who did not know would estimate the distance at not more than five, so clearly are all the details of the grand picture shown. It is said that from the glaciers on this peak come the streams whose waters give their peculiar milky cast to Harrison Lake and Harrison river. Near the base of Mount Douglass is an Indian village of the same name, and the Hudson Bay Fur Company formerly had a trading post in the neighborhood, which they called Fort Douglass. This Indian village is the home of my prospective guide, and from it he has adopted his unpoetic cognomen.
Half a mile to the right of where we entered the lake, the famous hot springs, already mentioned, boil out from under the foot of a mountain, and discharge their steaming fluid into the lake. The curative power of these waters has been known to the natives for ages past, and the sick have come from all directions, and from villages many miles away, to bathe in the waters and be healed. All about theplace are remains of Indian encampments, medicine lodges, etc. The tribes in this vicinity are greatly exercised over the fact of the white man having lately asserted ownership of their great sanitarium, and having assumed its control. Mr. J. R. Brown has erected over the springs a large bath-house, and near that a commodious hotel. He has cut a road through a pass in the mountains to Agassiz station, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, five miles distant, so that the springs may now be easily reached by invalids wishing to test their curative properties. Soon after my arrival at the springs, I climbed the mountain to the east of the hotel, and passed the time pleasantly, until sunset, viewing the beautiful scenery in the neighborhood.
On the following morning I took a boat and rowed up the east shore of the lake, in hope of getting a shot at a deer, but though I saw plenty of fresh signs all along the shore no game was visible. I spent the afternoon looking anxiously for my promised guide, but he came not. I again amused myself, however, taking views of the scenery, but found on developing the negatives that I had not been eminently successful with either Mount Douglass or Mount Chiam. Snowy mountains are about the most difficult objects in all nature to photograph, especially if you attempt to include anything beside the snowy peaks in the picture; for they are so intensely white, and the sky or even clouds that form the background are so light and afford so slight contrast, that it is next to impossible to get good sharp pictures of them. The landscape about the mountains is sure to offer some dark objects, perhaps deep shadows, and even the mountain itselfnearly always has bare rocks and dark, gloomy cañons, and to get these and the dazzling whiteness of the snow and ice on the same plate is decidedly difficult. Of course we see many fine photographs of snow-covered mountains, but if taken with a clear sky or with light clouds for background, there is generally more or less retouching necessary, and more or less doctoring in printing, with tissue paper, glass screens, etc., in order to obtain the results we see in the prints. I made some fair views of both these peaks, but not such as an enthusiastic amateur might wish. Of the lower mountains, where at that time there was no snow, of the lake, the islands, etc., I got very satisfactory pictures. I went up the road, toward the railway station, a mile or more, where it passes through one of those grand forests for which this country is so famous, where—
"Those green-robed senators of mighty woodsDream, and so dream all night without a stir."
"Those green-robed senators of mighty woodsDream, and so dream all night without a stir."
There I made views of some of the giant cedars, the dense moss-hung jungles, the great fir trees, etc. In these dark, densely-shaded woods I had to take off the flying shutter and make time exposures. I gave three to five seconds to each plate. In the prints the trees and other objects nearest to the lens are of course over-exposed, but the details in the shadows and objects in the extreme distance are clearly and beautifully brought out. For these time exposures I placed the camera on some convenient log, stump, or stone, in lieu of a tripod. In two instances I seated the rear end of the instrument on the ground, with the lens bearing up through the tops of the trees. The whitened trunk and broken, straggling arms ofone great old dead fir—one that has flourished in this rich soil and drawn sustenance from the moist, ozone-laden atmosphere of these mountains for hundreds of years, but has lived out his time and is now going the way of all things earthly—forms the subject of one of the best and most interesting pictures of the whole series. The tops of several other trees—birch, maple, etc., that stood near the fir—are also shown in the picture. It can best be seen and appreciated by holding it above your head, looking up at it, and imagining yourself there in the forest, looking up through the tops of the giant trees into the blue ethereal dome of heaven.
081
Nthe morning I got up early to look for Douglass Bill, thinking and hoping he might have landed during the night, but no one had seen him and there was no strange canoe in the harbor. After breakfast, in order to kill time, I climbed the mountain east of the hotel to a height of about a thousand feet. It is heavily timbered, and I found plenty of fresh deer-signs within plain sound of the hammers wielded by the carpenters at work on the hotel, but failed to get a shot. I returned at eleven o'clock, but Bill had not yet shown up. Three other Indians were there, however, with three deer in their canoe, which they had killed on the opposite side of the lake the day before. I now concluded that Mr. Major's confidence in Bill was misplaced; that he was not going to keep his contract, and was, in short, as treacherous, as unreliable, and as consummate a liar as other Indians; so I entered into negotiations with these three Indians to get one or two of them to go with me. But they had planned a trip to New Westminster, to sell their venison, and I could not induce any one of them to go, though I offered big wages, and a premium on each head of game I might kill, besides. They said that if I wished they would take me to their village—whichis five miles down the river—and that there were several good goat hunters there whom I could get. I accepted their offer of transportation, stepped into the canoe, and we pulled out. As we entered the shoal water in the river I asked for a pole, and impelled by it and the three paddles we sped down the stream at a rapid rate.
There was a cold, disagreeable rain falling and a chilly north wind blowing. This storm had brought clouds of ducks into the river, among them several flocks of canvas backs. The Indians, who were using smooth-bore muskets, killed several of these toothsome fowls. One flock rose ahead of us and started directly down the river, but by some kind of native intuition the Indians seemed to know that they would come back up the opposite shore. They dropped their guns, caught up the paddles and plied them with such force that every stroke fairly lifted the light cedar canoe out of the water, and we shot across the river with the speed of a deer. Sure enough, after flying a hundred yards down stream the ducks turned and, hugging the shore, undertook to pass up the river on the other side, but we cut them off, so that they had to pass over our heads. At this juncture the two muskets carried by the two young men cracked and three canvas backs dropped, limp and lifeless, into the water within a few feet of us.
We arrived at the hut occupied by this family at noon. It stands on the bank of the river, half a mile above the village of Chehalis, and as we pulled up, two old and two young squaws and nine small Indians, some of them mere papooses in arms (but notin long clothes—in fact, not in any clothes worth mentioning), came swarming out to meet us. Their abode was a shanty about twelve feet square, made by setting four corner posts into the ground, nailing cross-ribs on, and over these clapboards riven from the native cedars, and the roof was of the same material. The adult members of this social alliance had been engaged in catching and drying salmon during the recent run; the heads, entrails and backbones of which had been dumped into the river at their very door. There being no current near the shore they had sunk in barely enough water to cover them, and lay there rotting and poluting the water used by the family for drinking and cooking. Cart-loads of this offal were also lying about the dooryard, and had been trampled into and mixed up with the mud until the whole outfit stunk like a tanyard.
Within was a picture of filth and squalor that beggars description. The floor of the hut was of mother earth. A couple of logs with two clapboards laid across them formed the only seats. On one side was a pile of brush, hay, and dirty, filthy blankets, indiscriminately mixed, on which the entire three families slept, presumably in the same fashion. Near the centre of the hut a small fire struggled for existence, and that portion of the smoke that was not absorbed by the people, the drying fish and other objects in the room, escaped through a hole in the centre of the roof. The children, barefooted and half-naked, came in out of the rain, mud, and fish carrion, in which they had been tramping about, and sat or lay on the ground about the fire, looking as happy as a litter of pigs in a mud hole. On poles, attachedby cedar withes to the rafters, were hung several hundred salmon, absorbing smoke, carbonic acid gas from the lungs of the human beings beneath, and steam from the cooking that was going on. It is understood that after this process has been prolonged for some weeks these once noble fishes will be fit for the winter food of the Siwash.
Some of the houses in Chehalis are neat frame cottages; in fact, it is a better-built town, on the whole, than the village of Harrison River already described; but these better houses all stand back about a quarter of a mile from the river, and the inhabitants have left them and gone into the "fish-houses," the clapboard structures, on the immediate river bank. Some of these shanties are much larger than the one mentioned above, and in some cases four, five, or even six families hole up in one of these filthy dens during the fish-curing season.
As a matter of fact, there are salmon of one variety or another in these larger rivers nearly all the year, but sometimes the weather is too cold, too wet, or otherwise too disagreable in winter for the noble red man to fish with comfort, and hence all these preparations for a rainy day. After the fishes are cured they are hung up in big out-houses set on posts, or in some cases built high up in the branches of trees, in order to be entirely out of the reach of rats, minks, or other vermin, and the members of the commune draw from the stock at will. The coast Indians live almost wholly on fish, and seem perfectly happy without flesh, vegetables, or bread, if such be not at hand, though they can eat plenty of all these when set before them. If one of them kills a deer he seldomor never eats more of it than the liver, heart, lungs, etc. He sells the carcass, if within a three days' voyage of a white man who will buy venison.
086
SALMON BOXES IN TREES.
One of the young men already mentioned went with me down to one of the big fish-houses and called out Pean, a man about fifty years of age, who he said was a good goat hunter and a good guide. They held a hurried conversation in their native tongue, at theclose of which the young man said Pean would go with me for two dollars a day. I asked Pean if he could talk English, and he said "yes," but this proved, in after experience, to be about the only English word he could speak. He rushed into the hut, and in about three or four minutes returned with his gun, powder-horn, bullet-pouch, pipe, and a small roll of blankets, and was ready for a journey into the mountains of, he knew not how many days. His canoe was on the river bank near us, and as we were stepping into it I asked him a few questions which he tried to answer in English, but made a poor stagger at it, and slid off into Chinook.
Just then another old Indian came up with a canoe-load of wood. I asked him if he could speak English—"wah-wah King George"; and he said "Yes."
I then told him I had hired this other man to go hunting with me and asked him if he knew him.
"Oh, yes," he said; "me chief here. All dese house my house. All dese people my people. No other chief here." I said I was delighted to know him, shook hands with him, gave him a cigar, and inquired his name.
"Captain George," he said; "me chief here."
"Is he a good hunter?" pointing to Pean.
"Yes, Pean good hunter; good man. He kill plenty sheep, deer, bear." With this additional certificate of efficiency and good character I felt more confidence in Pean, and stepping into the canoe was once moreen routeto the mountains.
Still, I felt some misgivings, for my past experience with the fish eaters had taught me not to place implicit faith in their statements or pretensions, and the sequel will show how well grounded these fears were.
088
HEFlathead nation, to which nearly all the Puget Sound Indians belong, may almost be termed amphibians; for though they can, and do in some cases, live inland exclusively, they are never happy when away from the water. They are canoeists by birth and education. A coast Indian is as helpless and miserable without a canoe as a plains Indian without a horse, and the Siwash (Chinook for coast Indian) is as expert in the use of the canoe as the Sioux, Crow, or Arapahoe in the use and control of his cayuse. Almost the sole means of travel, of intercommunication among these people, and between themselves and the whites, is the canoe.
There are very few horses owned in any of the coast tribes, and these are rarely ridden. When a Siwash attempts to ride a horse he climbs onto it kicking and grunting with the effort, much as an Alabama negro mounts his mule, and sits him about as gracefully. But let the Siwash step into his canoe, and he fears no rapid, whirlpool, nor stormy billow. He faces the most perilous water and sendshis frail cedar shell into it with a skill and a consciousness of mastery that would put to the blush any of the prize winners in our Eastern canoe-club regattas. The canoes are models of nautical architecture. They are cut and carved from the cedar trees which bounteous Nature, in wise provision for the wants of Her children, has caused to grow so plentifully and to such prodigious size in the Sound country. They are of various sizes and lengths, owing to the uses for which they are intended. If for spearing salmon or for light traveling, they are cut from a tree twenty to twenty-four inches in diameter, and are not more than twelve to fifteen feet long. If for attending nets and bringing in the catch, they are generally longer, and if for freighting and long-distance traveling, they are of immense size and capable of carrying great burdens. A tree of the size wanted is selected, perfectly sound and free from knots, and a log of the desired length cut off. The log is hollowed, carved out to the desired shape, then trimmed and tapered outside until it is a mere shell, scarcely more than an inch thick anywhere.
090
AN OCCIDENTAL GONDOLA.
It is then filled with water, a fire is built near in which rocks are heated and thrown into the canoe until the water boils. This is continued until the wood is thoroughly cooked and softened, when the water is turned out, the canoe is spread at the centre, braced out to nearly twice its natural width or diameter, and left to dry. This gives it "sheer" and enables it to ride a heavy sea like a lifeboat. Handsomely carved figureheads are attached to some of the large canoes, and the entire craft is painted, striped, and decorated in gay colors. Imeasured one of these cedar canoes that was thirty-four feet long and five and a half feet beam, and was told by its owner that he had carried in it four tons of freight on one trip, and two cords of green wood on another. It would carry fifty men comfortably and safely. There are not many of the Indians that can make the larger and better grade of canoes, and the trade is one that but few master.
There is one famous old canoe builder near Vancouver, to whom Indians go from distances of a hundred miles or more when they want an extra fine, large, light canoe. For some specimens of his handiwork he gets as high as $80 to $100. The Indians throughout Washington Territory and British Columbia do considerable freighting for whites, on streams not navigable for steamers, and they take freight up over some of the rapids where no white man could run an empty canoe.
Some of these Flatheads are industrious and are employed by the whites in salmon canneries, lumbering and logging operations, farming, etc. Steamboat men employ them almost exclusively for deck hands, and they make the best ones to be had in the country; better than either whites or Chinamen. They are excellent packers by education. In this densely-timbered country horses can not, as a rule, be used for packing, and the Indians, in going across country where there is no watercourse, pack all their plunder on their backs. Whites traveling in the woods also depend on Indians to pack their luggage; consequently it is not strange that the latter become experts at the business, and it is this schooling that makes them valuable as deck hands.They are not large men, but are tough, sinewy, and muscular. An average Siwash will pick up a barrel of flour or pork, a case of dry goods, or other heavy freight weighing three hundred pounds or more, roll it onto his back, and walk up a gang-plank or a steep river-bank as easily as a white man would with a barrel of crackers.
No work is too dirty or too hard for them. They are obedient to orders and submissive to discipline, but their weak point, like that of all Indians, is their inordinate love of whisky. Quite frequently, after working a few weeks or months, they quit and go on a drunken debauch that ends only when their money is gone. Their dress is much the same, in general, as that of the whites in this region, with the exception that the Indians wear moccasins when hunting. This footgear is little in favor here with white hunters, owing to there being so much rainfall, and so much wading to do. Rubber boots are indispensable for hunting in most seasons, and a rubber coat should also be included in every hunter's outfit. I found the Hannaford ventilated rubber boot the most comfortable and perfect footgear I have ever worn. You can scarcely walk a mile in any direction in this country at any time of year, on mountains or lowlands, without encountering water. Moccasins soon become soaked, and are then the most uncomfortable things imaginable. I asked one of my guides why he did not wear rubber boots instead of moccasins, and he replied:
"O, I dunno. De moxicans cheaper, mebbe. I mek him myself. Can't mek de boots."
This is about the only use the Indians make ofbuckskin. It is not popular with them as a material for clothing, on account of the vast amount of rainy weather.
It has been said they make cloth from the wool of the goat, but, so far as I could learn, they make very little, if any of it, of late years. I saw some blankets that Indians had woven from this wool, but they were very coarse. They have no machinery for spinning; the yarn is merely twisted by hand, and is so coarse and loose that it would not hold together a week if made into a garment and worn in the woods. Of course, a fair article of yarn, and even cloth, may be, and has been, made entirely by hand, but these people have neither the skill, the taste, nor the industry to enable them to do such work. A coarse hair grows with the wool on the goat, and the squaws do not even take the trouble to separate it, but work both up together, making a very uncouth-looking fabric, even if thick, warm, and serviceable.
As a class, these Indians appear to be strictly honest, toward each other at least. They leave their canoes, guns, game, or in fact, any kind of property, anywhere they choose, without the slightest effort at concealment, and always feel perfectly sure of finding it on their return. About the only case of pilfering I ever heard of, while among them (and I took special pains to investigate) was when John asked me for some fish-hooks, and said in explanation:
"I had plenty hooks, but I reckon Seemo he steal all my hooks."
"Why, does Seymour steal?" I inquired. Helooked all around to see if Seymour was within hearing, and not seeing him, replied:
"You bet. He steal my hooks, too."
095
A SIWASH AND HIS MORNING'S CATCH.
096
AN INDIAN SALMON FISHERY.
had left my bedding at the Hot Springs Hotel, and returning to get it staid there all night. Early next morning (Friday, November 12) we crossed Harrison Lake, in a drenching rain, to the foot of a high mountain, about two miles from the springs, on which Pean, Captain George, and other Indians said there were plenty of goats. We beached our canoe, and made up packs for the climb up the mountain. The outfit consisted of our guns, my sleeping-bag, Pean's gun and blankets, a few sea biscuits, a piece of bacon, and some salt.
My sleeping-bag was wrapped up in a piece of canvas, and when I handed it to Pean, he commenced to unroll it to put his blankets in with it, but I objected. Visions of the insects with which I knew his bedding was inhabited rose up before me. I thought of the rotary drill, key-hole saw, and suction pump with which they are said to be armed, and I did not want any of them in my bag. So I unrolled the canvas only a part of its length, laid his blankets in and rolled it up again, hoping the remaining folds might prevent the vermin from finding their way in, and my reckoning proved correct. One of his blankets had been white in its day, but had long since lost its grip on that color, and wasnow about as pronounced a brunette as its owner. The other blanket was gray, but even through this sombre shade, as well as through the rank odor it emitted, gave evidence that it had not been washed for many years. Pean brought with him a cotton bedspread that had also once been white, but left this with the canoe. In my pack I carried the grub, and an extra coat for use on the mountain, where we expected to encounter colder weather.
We started up the mountain at ten o'clock in the forenoon. For the first two miles we skirted its base to the eastward, through dense timber, crossing several deep, dark jungles and swamps. Then we began the ascent proper, and as soon as we got up a few hundred feet on the mountain side, we found numerous fresh deer-signs. We halted to rest, when Pean took from its case his gun, which up to this time he had kept covered, and which I naturally supposed to be a good, modern weapon. It proved, however, an old smooth bore, muzzle-loading, percussion-lock musket, of .65 calibre, with a barrel about fifty inches long. He drew out the wiping stick, on the end of which was a wormer, pulled a wad of paper from the gun and poured a charge of shot out into his hand. This he put carefully into his shot-bag. Then he took from another pouch a No. 1 buckshot, and dropped it into the muzzle of his musket. It rolled down onto the powder, when he again inserted the bunch of paper, rammed it home with the rod, put on a cap, and was loaded for bear, deer, or whatever else he mightencounter. He then replaced the musket in its sealskin cover as carefully as if it had been a $300 breech-loader.
Nearly all these Indians use just such old muskets, bought from the Hudson Bay Company, and yet they keep them in covers made of the skin of the seal, which they kill in the rivers hereabout, or of deer or other animals. They take excellent care of their guns in this respect, but I have never seen one of them clean or oil his weapon, and several of them told me they seldom do so.
My Winchester express, with fancy stock, Lyman sight, etc., was a curiosity to them. None of them had ever seen anything like it, and one of them asked me what kind of a rifle it was. When told it was a Winchester, he said:
"I didn't know Winchester so big like dat. Didn't know he had stock like dat." He had only seen the little .44 Winchester, with a plain stock, and innocently supposed it was the only kind made.
Pean and I had a hard day's work toiling up the mountain through fallen timber, over and around great ledges of jutting rock, across deep, rugged cañons and gulches, and through dense jungles of underbrush. About two o'clock in the afternoon we halted, lay down for a rest, and had been there but a few minutes when I heard the sharp, familiar chatter of the little pine squirrel. I looked around quickly, expecting to see one within a few feet of me, but instead saw Pean lying close to the ground, beckoning to me and pointing excitedly up the game trail in which we had been walking. Looking through the thick, intervening brush, I saw twodeer, a buck and a doe, looking toward us. They had not seen nor scented us, but had merely heard the chatter of the little squirrel, as they supposed, and, though apparently as completely deceived by it as I had been, they had stopped to listen, as they do at almost every sound they hear in the woods. But there was no squirrel there. Pean had taken this method of calling my attention, and had imitated the cry of the familiar little cone-eater so perfectly that even the deer had been deceived by it.
I cautiously and slowly drew my rifle to my shoulder, and taking aim at the breast of the buck, fired. Both deer bounded away into thicker brush, and were out of sight in an instant. Pean sprang after them, and in a few minutes I heard the dull, muffled report of his musket. He shouted to me, and going to him I found the buck dead and the Indian engaged in butchering it. My bullet had gone a little farther to the left than I intended, breaking its shoulder, and had passed out through the ribs on the same side. The deer had fallen after going but a few yards, but was not quite dead when Pean came up and shot it through the head. We took out the entrails, cut a choice roast of the meat for our supper and breakfast, and hurried on our way.
We camped at four o'clock on a small bench of the mountain, and you may rest assured, gentle reader, that our conversation in front of the camp fire that night was novel. Pean, you will remember, could not speak half a dozen words of English. He spoke entirely in Chinook, and I knew but a few words of that jargon. I had a Chinook dictionarywith me, however, and by its aid was able to pick out the few words necessary in what little talking I had to do, and to translate enough of Pean's answers to my questions to get along fairly well. The great trouble with him seemed to be that he was wound up to talk, and whenever I made a remark or asked a question in his adopted language he turned loose, and talked until I shut him off with "Halo kumtucks" (I don't understand). No matter how often I repeated this he seemed soon to forget it, and would open on me again whenever he got a cue. He was a fluent talker, and if I had only been well up in the jargon, I could have got lots of pointers from him.
The deer of this region is the true black-tail (Cervus columbianus), not the mule-deer (Cervus macrotis), that is so often miscalled the black-tail. The black-tail is smaller than the mule-deer, and its ears, though not so large as those of the latter, are larger than those of the Virginia deer (Cervus virginianus). Its tail is white underneath, dark outside, shading to black at the lower end, and while longer than that of the mule-deer, is not so long as that of the Virginia deer.
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HINOOKis a queer jargon. It is said to have been manufactured many years ago by an employé of the Hudson Bay Fur Company, who taught the principal chiefs of various Indian tribes to speak it in order to facilitate traffic with them. From that time it has grown and spread until almost every Indian of the North Pacific Coast, and many inland tribes of Washington, British Columbia, and Oregon speak it. White men of all nations who live in this country speak it, and even the almond-eyed Chinaman learns it soon after locating here. In short, it is the court language of the Northwest, as the sign language is of the plains. It is made up from various Indian tongues, with a few English, or rather pigeon-English, French, and Spanish words intermixed. There are only about 1,500 words in the language and it is very easy to learn. Of course, it is woefully lacking in strength and beauty. You will often want to say something that can not be said in Chinook, because there are no words in that jargon with which to say it. But it is made to answer the purposes of trade, travel, and barter, in common forms. For instance:
"Kah-tah si-ah ko-pa Frazer chuck?" would be, "How far is it to the Frazer river?"
"Yutes kut klat-a-wa la-pe-a," "Only a shortwalk." If you wish to say good-morning or good-evening to an Indian you say:
"Kla-how-ya, six."
"Chah-co yah-wa" is "Come here."
"Mi-ka tik-eh mam-ook?" "Do you want to work?"
"Ik-ta mi-ka mam-ook?" "At what?"
"Mam-ook stick." "Cut some wood."
"Na-wit-ka." "Certainly."
"Kon-si dat-la spose mi-ka mam-ook kon-a-way o-koke stick?" "What do you want for cutting that lot of wood?"
"Ikt dol la." "One dollar."
The numerals are ikt (one), mox (two), klone (three), lock-it (four), kwin-num (five), tagh-kum (six), sin-na mox (seven), sto te-kin (eight), twaist (nine), tah-tlum (ten), tah-tlum pee-ikt (eleven), tah-tlum pee-mox (twelve), mox-tah tlum (twenty), klone tah-tlum (thirty), ikt tali-kamo-nux (one hundred), tah-tlum to-ka mo-mik (one thousand), etc. It is often difficult to get accurate information from these Indians as to distances or time, as they have little idea of English miles or of the measurements of time, and very few of them own or know how to read a watch or clock. Under Pean's tutelage I learned rapidly, and was soon able to carry on quite an interesting conversation by the aid of the little dictionary.
By the light of a rousing camp-fire I cut a large quantity of cedar boughs and made for myself a bed a foot deep. On this I spread my sleeping-bag, crawled into it and slept the sleep of the weary hunter. Pean cut only a handful of boughs, spreadthem near the fire, threw his coat over them, and lay down. Then he folded his two blankets and spread them over him, mostly on the side away from the fire, leaving that part of his body next to the fire exposed so as to catch its heat direct. During the night, whenever he turned over, he would shift his blankets so as to keep them where most needed. At frequent intervals he would get up and replenish the fire from the large supply of dry wood we had provided. The night was bitter cold, at this high altitude, and snow fell at frequent intervals. A raw wind blew, and the old man must have suffered from the cold to which he exposed himself.
There are few of these savages that understand and appreciate fully the value of a good bed when camping. In fact, many white hunters and mountaineers go on long camping trips with insufficient bedding, simply because they are too lazy to carry enough to keep them comfortable. I would rather get into a good warm, soft bed at night without my supper, than eat a feast and then sleep on the hard ground, without covering enough to keep me warm. After a hard day's work a good bed is absolutely necessary to prepare one for the labor and fatigue of the following day.
"In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,And born in bed, in bed we die;The near approach, a bed may show,Of human bliss to human woe."
"In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,And born in bed, in bed we die;The near approach, a bed may show,Of human bliss to human woe."
Any ablebodied man may endure a few nights of cold, comfortless sleep, but it will tell on him sooner or later; while if he sleep comfortably and eatheartily, he may endure an incredible amount of labor and hardship of other kinds. You may tramp all day with your feet wet, and all your clothing wet, if need be, but be sure you crawl into a good, warm, dry bed at night.
Old Pean complained of feeling unwell during the evening, and in the morning when we got up said he was sick. I prepared a good breakfast, but he could not, or at least would not, eat. Then he told me that he had once fallen down a mountain; that his breast-bone had been crushed in by striking on a sharp rock, and that it always hurt him since when doing any hard work. He said the climb up the mountain with the pack was too hard for him and he was played out, that he could go no farther.
Here was another bitter disappointment, as we were yet two miles from the top of the mountain, and in going that distance a perpendicular ascent of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet must be made. I deliberated, therefore, as to whether I should go up the mountain alone and let Pean go back, but decided it would be useless. I could not carry more load than my sleeping-bag, gun, etc., and therefore could bring no game down with me if I killed it, not even a head or skin. Beside, if he went back he would take his canoe, and I would be left with no means of crossing the lake. So the only thing to be done was to pack up and retrace our steps. On our way down we stopped and took the head and skin off of the deer killed the day before, and I carried them to the canoe. Arriving at the lake, we pulled again for Chehalis in a cold, disagreeable rain. I stoppedat the hot springs on my way down, and took my leave of my host, Mr. Brown, who had been so kind to me, and who regretted my ill luck almost as much as I did.
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Nour return to Chehalis—that town of unsavory odors and salmon-drying, salmon-smoking Siwashes—I at once employed two other Indians, named John and Seymour, and, on the following day we started up Ski-ik-kul Creek, to a lake of the same name, in which it heads ten miles back in the mountains. The Indians claimed that goats, or sheep, as they call them, were plentiful on the cliffs surrounding this lake, and that we could kill plenty of them from a raft while floating up and down along the shores. Seymour claimed to have killed twenty-three in March last, just after the winter snows had gone off, and a party of seven Siwashes from Chehalis had killed ten about two weeks previous to the date of my visit.Such glowing accounts as these built up my hopes again to such a height as to banish from my mind all recollection of the bitter disappointment in which the former expedition had ended, and, although the rain continued to fall heavily at short intervals, so that the underbrush reeked with dampness and drenching showers fell from every bush we touched, I trudged cheerily along regardless of all discomforts.The first two miles up the creek, we had a good, open trail, but at the end of this we climbed a steep,rocky bluff, about 500 feet high, and made the greater portion of the remaining distance at an average of about this height above the stream. There was a blind Indian trail all the way to the lake, but it led over the roughest, most tortuous, outlandish country that ever any fool of a goat hunter attempted to traverse. There are marshes and morasses away up among these mountains, where alders and water beeches, manzanitas, and other shrubs grow so thick that their branches intertwine to nearly their full length. Many of these have fallen down in various directions, and their trunks are as inextricably mixed as their branches, forming altogether a labyrinthine mass, through which it was with the utmost difficulty we could walk at all.
Nour return to Chehalis—that town of unsavory odors and salmon-drying, salmon-smoking Siwashes—I at once employed two other Indians, named John and Seymour, and, on the following day we started up Ski-ik-kul Creek, to a lake of the same name, in which it heads ten miles back in the mountains. The Indians claimed that goats, or sheep, as they call them, were plentiful on the cliffs surrounding this lake, and that we could kill plenty of them from a raft while floating up and down along the shores. Seymour claimed to have killed twenty-three in March last, just after the winter snows had gone off, and a party of seven Siwashes from Chehalis had killed ten about two weeks previous to the date of my visit.
Such glowing accounts as these built up my hopes again to such a height as to banish from my mind all recollection of the bitter disappointment in which the former expedition had ended, and, although the rain continued to fall heavily at short intervals, so that the underbrush reeked with dampness and drenching showers fell from every bush we touched, I trudged cheerily along regardless of all discomforts.
The first two miles up the creek, we had a good, open trail, but at the end of this we climbed a steep,rocky bluff, about 500 feet high, and made the greater portion of the remaining distance at an average of about this height above the stream. There was a blind Indian trail all the way to the lake, but it led over the roughest, most tortuous, outlandish country that ever any fool of a goat hunter attempted to traverse. There are marshes and morasses away up among these mountains, where alders and water beeches, manzanitas, and other shrubs grow so thick that their branches intertwine to nearly their full length. Many of these have fallen down in various directions, and their trunks are as inextricably mixed as their branches, forming altogether a labyrinthine mass, through which it was with the utmost difficulty we could walk at all.
There were numberless little creeks coming down from the mountain into the main stream, and each had in time cut its deep, narrow gulch, or cañon, lined on both sides with rough, shapeless masses of rock, and all these we were obliged to cross. In many cases, they were so close together that only a sharp hog-back lay between them, and we merely climbed out of one gulch 300 or 400 feet deep, to go at once down into another still deeper, and so on. Fire had run through a large tract of this country, killing out all the large timber, and many trees have since rotted away and fallen, while the blackened and barkless trunks of others, with here and there a craggy limb, still stand as mute monuments to the glory of the forest before the dread element laid it waste.
We camped that night at the base of one of these great dead firs around which lay a cord or moreof old dry bark that had fallen from it, and which, with a few dry logs we gathered, furnished fuel for a rousing, all-night fire. Within a few feet of our camp, a clear, ice-cold little rivulet threaded its serpentine way down among rocks and ferns, and made sweet music to lull us to sleep. After supper, I made for myself the usual bed of mountain feathers (cedar boughs), on which to spread my sleeping-bag.
This old companion of so many rough jaunts, over plains and mountains, has become as necessary a part of my outfit for such voyages as my rifle. Whether it journey by day, on the hurricane deck of a mule, in the hatchway of a canoe, on my shoulder blades or those of a Siwash, it always rounds up at night to house me against the bleak wind, the driving snow, or pouring rain. I have learned to prize it so highly that I can appreciate the sentiments of the fallen monarch, Napoleon, on the lonely island of St. Helena, when he wrote:
"The bed has become a place of luxury to me. I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world."
These Indians, like Pean, and, in fact, all others who have seen the bag, are greatly interested in it. They had never seen anything like it, and watched with undisguised interest the unfolding and preparing of the article, and when I had crawled into it, and stowed myself snugly away, they looked at each other, grunted and uttered a few of their peculiar guttural sounds, which I imagined would be, if translated:
"Well, I'll be doggoned if that ain't about the sleekest trick I ever saw. Eh?"
"You bet it's nice to sleep in, but heavy to carry."
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DIAGRAM OF SLEEPING-BAG.
By the way, some of my readers may never have seen one of these valuable camp appendages, and a description of it may interest them. The outer bag is made of heavy, brown, waterproof canvas, six feet long, three feet wide in the centre, tapered to two feet at the head and sixteen inches at the foot. Above the head of the bag proper, flaps project a foot farther, with which the occupant's head may be completely covered, if desired. These are provided with buttons and button-holes, so that they may be buttoned clear across, for stormy or very cold weather. The bag is left open, from the head down one edge, two feet, and a flap is provided to lap overthis opening. Buttons are sewed on the bag, and there are button-holes in the flaps so it may also be buttoned up tightly. Inside of this canvas bag is another of the same size and shape, less the head flaps. This is made of lamb skin with the wool on, and is lined with ordinary sheeting, to keep the wool from coming in direct contact with the person or clothing. One or more pairs of blankets may be folded and inserted in this, as may be necessary, for any temperature in which it is to be used.
If the weather be warm, so that not all this covering is needed over the sleeper, he may shift it to suit the weather and his taste, crawling in on top of as much of it as he may wish, and the less he has over him the more he will have under him, and the softer will be his bed. Beside being waterproof, the canvas is windproof, and one can button himself up in this house, leaving only an air-hole at the end of his nose, and sleep as soundly, and almost as comfortably in a snowdrift on the prairie as in a tent or house. In short, he may be absolutely at home, and comfortable, wherever night finds him, and no matter what horrid nightmares he may have, he can not roll out of bed or kick off the covers.
Nor will he catch a draft of cold air along the north edge of his spine every time he turns over, as he is liable to do when sleeping in blankets. Nor will his feet crawl out from under the cover and catch chilblains, as they are liable to do in the old-fashioned way. In fact, this sleeping-bag is one of the greatest luxuries I ever took into camp, and ifany brother sportsman who may read this wants one, and can not find an architect in his neighborhood capable of building one, let him communicate with me and I will tell him where mine was made.