CHAPTER XXVII DOWN THE COLUMBIA.

THE Blackfoot was gratified to find himself able to understand the jargon spoken by the visitors, although he did not know to what tribe they belonged. A marked similarity showed between many words in the two tongues, and conversation progressed better than would have been supposed, Deerfoot being able to comprehend almost as much as his friend.

Night was closing in, and the fact that the explorers did not start a fire when such an abundance of fuel was at hand clearly surprised the strangers. They looked at the ground and then pointed to the lumber. He who was apparently the leader began talking earnestly to Mul-tal-la. His meaning soon became clear. He was urging him and his friends to make use of the timber. The Blackfoot shook his head and replied they could not take it without the consent of the owner. The leader grinned and said it belonged to him and the two men with him.

That put another face on the matter. Deerfoot told the boys to go to work and bring all the wood they needed. He sympathized with them, but he would not yield on a question of principle. It need not be said that the brothers did not let the grass grow under their feet. It was almost cold enough for ice, but, more than all, they needed the fire for cooking the salmon that had been taken from the stream.

The visitors became very friendly. They were armed with bows and arrows, and showed a willingness to help in gathering fuel, but their offer was declined, and the steel and tinder—another source of astonishment to them—soon set a vigorous blaze going, and the broiling fish sent out a fragrant and appetizing odor. There was an abundance for all, and the visitors accepted the invitation to join in the meal. They ate sparingly, as if afraid of depriving their hosts of what they needed, and when through, each produced a long-stemmed pipe, filled it with tobacco, and smoked with apparent enjoyment.

The strangers remained for an hour after the meal. Then, having smoked all that was in the bowls, they gravely shook out the ashes, carefully stowed the pipes under their blankets, and rose to go. The leader beckoned to Mul-tal-la to accompany him for a few paces, so as to be beyond hearing of his friends. The Blackfoot complied, and the conversation between the two may be thus liberally interpreted:

“A bad Indian lives down the river,” said the visitor.

Mul-tal-la agreed to the statement by a nod of his head.

“He catches a great many salmon.”

“I observe that he isn’t the only Indian who does that.”

“I do not like him.”

“I am sure my friend has good reason not to like him. He must be very bad.”

“I owe him much ill-will. He will be mad when he comes to build him a home to use while he gathers salmon.”

“Why will he be mad?”

“Because the lumber you have used belonged to him, and he is gone so far away that you and your friends cannot pay him for the wood; therefore he will be mad when he comes here again.”

“I should think he would boil over. Who can blame him?”

Having delivered himself of this interesting information, the visitor signed to his companions, and the three strode off and were seen no more.

The humor of the thing struck Mul-tal-la, and he grinned while telling his story to Deerfoot and the boys. The Shawanoe was displeased, but had sufficient philosophy to see that there was no help for it. The wood had been burned, the food prepared and eaten, and though they might refrain from consuming more fuel—as they did—the mischief could not be undone.

“I’m trying my best to feel bad over it,” chuckled Victor to his brother; “but somehow or other I can’t.”

“That’s because you don’t feel as conscientious as Deerfoot.”

“How is it with you?”

“I feel exactly like you; so let’s say no more about it.”

There is no end to the salmon in the Columbia River. At numerous islands mat houses were seen where the people were as busy as beavers in splitting and drying the fish. Looking down in the clear water they could be seen twenty feet below the surface, sometimes moving slowly and then darting hither and thither so swiftly that they looked like flitting patches of shadow. They floated down stream at this season in such enormous quantities that winrows drifted ashore and the Indians had only to gather, split and dry them on the scaffolds. Some of the people explained by signs that, owing to the scarcity of wood, they often used the dried fish for fuel. The material for the scaffolds must have been brought from a considerable distance, for no suitable wood was seen for many a mile.

As our friends descended the Columbia they were compelled at times to make portages around the more difficult passages. The canoe with its contents was carried on the shoulders of the four, who thus lightened what otherwise would have been a heavy burden. Landing on a small island the explorers came upon an interesting vault which was used by the Pishquitpahs for the burial of their dead.

Large forked sticks had been driven into the ground at about a man’s height, and a ridge-pole, fifty feet long, rested upon them. Over this were placed pieces of canoes and boards, which slanted down to the eaves, and thus formed a shed that was open at both ends. Impressed by the sight, the visitors peeped into the interior. Bodies wrapped in skin robes were arranged in rows, over which a mat was spread. Farther on skeletons were seen, and in the middle of the building was a large pile of bones thrown together without regard to order. On a mat at one end of the structure were a score of skulls placed in the form of a circle. The method of these people was first to wrap a body in robes and, after it had decayed, to throw the bones in a heap and put the skulls together.

That the friends of the departed kept them in remembrance was shown by the numerous fishing nets, wooden bowls, blankets, robes, skins and trinkets suspended from under the roof. The sight of numerous skeletons of horses near at hand indicated that the Pishquitpahs sacrificed them to their dead.

The manner in which the Indian tribes of the Columbia formerly dried and packed their salmon may be thus described:

The fish were first opened and exposed to the sun on the scaffolds. There they remained until perfectly dry, when they were pulverized by pounding between stones, and then were placed in a large basket, made of grass and rushes and lined with the skin of a salmon that had been stretched and dried for the purpose. The fish were pressed down as hard as possible and the top covered with fish skins, which were tied by cords passing over the top. Thus prepared the baskets were placed in a dry place, wrapped up with mats, secured again by cords, and once more covered with mats. Salmon thus preserved will keep sweet for several years. Immense quantities were bartered to the Indians below the falls, whence they found their way to the mouth of the Columbia, where they were sold to white visitors.

George and Victor Shelton heard so many reports of the Falls of the Columbia that their expectations were at a high point, but the reality was less than they anticipated. Their height is less than fifty feet in a distance of nearly three-fourths of a mile. The first fall was passed by means of a portage a quarter of a mile in extent, for this fall has a perpendicular height of twenty feet. During the floods in early spring the waters below the falls rise nearly to a level with those above, and the salmon pass up the river in inconceivable numbers.

Deerfoot and Mul-tal-la watched with some anxiety their approach to the second fall, of which their Indian friends had warned them. They first observed a smooth basin, at whose extremity on the right bank rose an enormous black rock which seemed to extend wholly across the river. Since, however, the stream must have a channel, this, of course, was impossible. A loud roaring came from the left, where the current ran more swiftly. Climbing to the top of the rock it was seen that the river was compressed into a channel a little more than a hundred feet wide, in which the water swirled and eddied so furiously that the boys were sure it was impossible to steer the canoe through the wild battle of whirlpool and rapids.

In the Rapids.

But the choice lay between that and the labor of carrying the boat over the towering rock at the expense of great time and labor. Neither Deerfoot nor Mul-tal-la hesitated, and George and Victor braced themselves for the struggle. It proved to be hair-raising. Gripping the sides of the canoe, the boys often held their breath and crouched ready for a leap and swim for life, but the coolness and skill of the two Indians never faltered. Without speaking a word, each understood on the instant the right thing to do, and did it. Repeatedly the craft touched some of the jagged dripping points of rock, and an inch or two more to the right or left would have brought quick destruction to the frail craft, but that slight distance was never passed and they sped onward like a race horse. A vicious wave would fling the boat almost out of the water, and then a foaming breaker seemed about to seize it in its remorseless grasp. A moment later a whirlpool or eddy would have spun the canoe around like a top but for the powerful sweep of those two paddles, which worked like the spokes of the same wheel.

When the lads began to breathe more freely they would gasp and make ready to spring into the water, for disaster seemed rushing upon them, but the swarthy, muscular forms never wavered nor lost control. George and Victor had been with Deerfoot in many situations of peril, but they were sure he never displayed such skill as when guiding the craft through these rapids. Being at the front, his hand was the master one, but, as I have said, it was as if the same impulse guided the arms of Shawanoe and Blackfoot.

This wild charge lasted for half a mile, when the river expanded to a width of two hundred yards; but before the brothers could find much comfort in the fact the situation suddenly became more trying than ever. The channel was divided by two rocky islands, the lower and larger being in the middle of the river. Few Indians dared risk a passage past these obstructions, but the Shawanoe and Blackfoot took it without a moment’s hesitation, and, shipping a little water, sped through without mishap. Turning into a deep bend of the river on the right the explorers went into camp for the night.

A short distance below was a village of some twenty houses, in which lived a tribe of Indians called Echeloots, who belong to the Upper Chinooks. They were hospitable to the visitors, who noted several interesting peculiarities in them, of whom only a very few survivors now exist. For the first time in their travels among the Indians our friends saw wooden houses. They were rude structures, whose chimneys consisted of a single hole each, with a small door at the gable end, which was partly underground.

You have heard of the Flathead Indians, also called Salish or Selish, who used to live in a part of the present State of Washington. To-day they number about a thousand. They are short of stature, badly formed, with large nostrils and thick lips and nose. It was formerly their practice to flatten the heads of their children during infancy, when the bones are soft and yielding, and from which fact came their popular name.

At the time of the visit of our friends the strange practice prevailed among the Echeloots, as it did with nearly all the tribes of the Chinook family on the Columbia. The flattening of the skull was not done by pressure upon the crown, as you might suppose, but by binding a flat board on the forehead of an infant. A little way above the crown this board joined the upper end of the plank upon which the child was stretched on its back, but the two boards diverged as they extended in the direction of the feet. You will understand the process better if you will think of the letter V lying on one side, with the head of the infant thrust as far as possible into the narrow end. This brought the pressure over the upper part of the forehead, which was gradually forced down until from the eyebrows to the extreme rear of the crown was a single slope like that of the roof of a house. The skull rose into a peak behind and sloped away, as I have said, to the ridge of the eyebrows.

An Indian who had been subjected to this senseless treatment was shockingly deformed, and no one could look upon such creatures without a feeling of repulsion. Nevertheless, the process did not injure the brain nor diminish its volume. A warrior who had been made a “flat head” knew just as much as if his brain had been left to grow as nature intended.

For centuries the Chinese have compressed the feet of their females; the Flatheads have forced the heads of their infants out of shape, and the Caucasian women have squeezed their waists into the narrowest possible limits. A careful comparison of the three crimes must lead us to think that the last-named is the most injurious and, therefore, the most criminal.