# The Canoe and the Saddle/Chapter IV
## Owhhigh

It was harsh penance to a bootless man to tramp the natural Macadam of minced trap-rock on the plateau above the Sound. The little pebbles of the adust volcanic pavement cut my moccasined feet like unboiled peas of pilgrimage. I marched along under the oaks as stately as frequent limping permitted. My motley retinue followed me humbly, bearing “ikta,” my traps, and their own plunder. Their demeanor was crushed and cringing, greatly changed since the truculent scene over the captured lumoti, which I still kept as a trophy, hung at my waist to balance my pistol.
After a walk of a mile, with my body-guard of shabby S’Klalam aristocrats, I entered the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fort of Nisqually. Disrepute draggled after me, but my character was already established in a previous visit. I had left Dr. Tolmie, the factor, at Vancouver’s Island; Mr. H., his substitute, received me hospitably at the postern. Nisqually is a palisaded enclosure, two hundred feet square. Bartizan towers protect its corners. Within are blockhouses for goods and furs, and one-story cottages for residence.
Indian leaguers have of yore beset this fort. Indians have lifted Indians up toward the fifteenth and topmost foot of the fir palisades. Shots from the loopholes of the bartizans dropped the assailants, and left them lying on the natural Macadam without. Whereupon the survivors retired, and consulted about fire; but that fatal foe was also defeated by the death of every incendiary as he approached.
To visit such a place is to recall and illustrate all our early New-England history. Our forefathers fled, in King Philip’s time, to just such refuges. Personal contact with a similar state of facts makes their forgotten perils real. In that recent antiquity, pioneers exposed to the indiscriminate revenge of the savage flew from cabin and clearing to stockades far less defensible than this. Better its insecure shelter for wife and child than the terror of a forest forever seeming aglare with cruel eyes, — where the forester could never banish the curdling consciousness of an unseen presence, watching until the assassin moment came; where the silence might hear other sounds than the hum of insects or the music of birds, — might hear the scoffing yell of Indians, contemptuous victors over the race that scorned them. What wonder that the agonies of such suspense stirred up the settlers to cowardly slaughter of every savage, friend or foe? A frightened man becomes a barbarian and a brute. Fear is a miserable agent of civilization. We can hardly now connect ourselves with that period. No longer, when twigs crackle in the forest, do we shrink lest the parting leaves may reveal a new-comer, with whom we must race for life. Larceny is disgusting, burglary is unpleasant, arson is undesirable, murder is one of the foul arts; Indians were adepts in all of these trades at once. Any reminiscence of a condition from which we have happily escaped is agreeable. This palisade fort was a monument of a past age to me. It made me two hundred years old at once.
A monument, but not a cenotaph; on the contrary, it was full of bustling life. Rusty Indians, in all degrees of frowziness of person and costume, were trading at the shop for the three b’s of Indian desire, — blankets, beads, and ’baccy, — representatives of need, vanity, and luxury. The Klickatats had indeed arrived. To-morrow Owhhigh and the grandees were to come in from their camp to buy and sell. All the squaws purchasing to-day were hags beyond the age of coquetry in costume, yet they were buying beads and hanging them in hideous contrast about their baggy, wrinkled necks, and then glowering for admiration with dusky eyes. These were valued customers, since they knew the tariff, and never haggled, but paid cash or its equivalent, otter beaver, and skunk skins, and similar treasures. The pretty girls would come afterward, as money failed, and try to make their winsome smiles a substitute for funds.
In contrast to these unpleasant objects, a very handsome and gentlemanly young brave entered just after me, and came forward as I was greeting Mr. H. He was tall and loungingly graceful, and so fair that there must have been silver in the copper of his blood. This rather supercilious personage was, he told me, of Owhhigh’s band, not by nation but by adoption. He was a Spokan from the Upper Columbia, a volunteer among the Klickatats, perhaps because their method of filibusterism was attractive, perhaps because there was a vendetta for him at home. He wore a semi-civilized costume, — coat of black from some far-away slop-shop of Britain, fringed leggins of buckskin from the lodge of a Klickatat tailoress. A broad-beaded band crossed his breast, like the ribbon of an order of nobility. The incongruity in his costume was redeemed by his cool, dignified bearing. He was an Adonis of Nature, not a rubicund Adonis of the D’Orsay type. While we talked, he kept a cavalier’s advantage, not dismounting from his fiery little saddleless black.
Him, by Mr. H’s advice, I prayed to be my ambassador to the great Owhhigh. Would that dignitary permit me an interview to-morrow, and purvey me horses and a guide for my dash through his realm? My Spokan Adonis, with the self-possessed courtesy of a high-bred Indian, accepted the office of negotiator, and ventured to promise that Owhhigh would speed me. But in case Adonis should prove faithless, or Owhhigh indifferent, Mr. H. despatched a messenger at once for one of the Company’s voyageurs, now a quiet colonist, who could resume the rover, and guide me, if other guidance failed, anywhere in the Northwest.
I now conducted the Duke and my party to the shop, and served out to them one two-and-a-halfpoint blanket apiece, and one to Olyman for the Bucentaur, accompanying the boon with a lecture on the evils of intemperance and the duty of faithfulness. They seemed quite pleased now that they had not butchered and scalped me, and expressed the friendliest sentiments, perhaps with a view to a liberal “potlatch” of trinkets. They also besought permission to encamp in the fort, lest pillage should befall them. It was growing dark, and the different parties of Indians admitted within the palisades were grouped, gypsy-like, about their cooking-fires. Some of these unbrotherly siwashes cast wolf’s-eyes upon my Klalams, now an enviable and plunderable squad. These latter, wealthy and well-blanketed, skulked away into a corner, and when I saw them last, by their fire-light, the Duke, more like a degraded ecclesiastic than ever, was haranguing his family, while Jenny Lind sat at his feet, and bent upon him untruthful eyes. At morn they were not to be seen; the ducal pair, Olyman and the fishy, all had vanished. A few unconsidered trifles, such as a gun, a blanket, and a basket of kamasroots, property of the unbrotherly, had vanished with them. Unconsidered trifles will stumble against the shins of Indians, stealing away at night.
As these representatives of Klalam civilization now make final exit from my narrative, I must give them a proper “teapot.” They may be taken as types of the worse character of the coast Indians, — jolly brutes, with the bad and the good traits of savages, and much harmed by the besettings of civilized temptations.
I cannot omit from the Duke of York’s teapot facts within my own observation, — that he was drunken, idle, insolent, and treacherous, — nor the hearsay fact that he has since been beguiled into murders; but I must notice also his apologies of race, circumstance, the bad influence of Pikes by land and profane tars by sea, and governmental neglect, a logical result of slavery.
Mr. H. had had great success in converting the brown dust of a dry swamp without the fort into a garden of succulent vegetables. As we were inspecting the cabbages and onions next morning, we heard a resonance of hoofs over the trap pavement. A noise of galloping sounded among the oaks. Presently a wild dash of Indian cavaliers burst into sight. Their equipment might not have borne inspection: few things will, here below, except such as rose-leaves and the cheeks of a high-bred child. Prejudice might have called their steeds scrubby mustangs; prejudice might have used the word tag-rag as descriptive of the fly-away effect of a troop all a-flutter with ribbons, fur-tails, deerskin fringes, trailing lariats, and whirling whip-thongs, It was a very irregular and somewhat ragamuffin brigade. But the best hussars of the Christendom that sustains itself by means of hussars are tawdry and clumsy to a critical eye, and certainly, not so picturesque as these Klickatats, stampeding toward us from under the gray mossy oaks.
They came, deployed in the open woods, now hidden in a hollow, now rising a crest, all at full gallop, loud over the baked soil, — a fantastic cavalcade. They swept about the angle of the fort, and we, following, found them grouped near the open postern, waiting for permission to enter. Some were dismounted; some were dashing up and down on their shaggy nags, — a band of picturesque marauders on a peaceful foray.
Owhhigh and his aides-de-camp stood a little apart, Spokan Adonis among them. At a sign from Mr. H., they followed us within the fort, and entered the factor’s cottage. Much ceremony is observed by the Hudson’s Bay Company with the Indians. Discipline must be preserved. Dignity tells. Indians, having it, appreciate it. Owhhigh alone was given a seat opposite us. His counsellors stood around him, while three or four less potent members of his suite peered gravely over their shoulders. The palaver began.
Owhhigh’s braves were gorgeous with frippery, and each wore a beaded order. The Murats of the world make splendid fighting-cocks of themselves with martial feathers; the Napoleons wear gray surtouts. Owhhigh was in stern simplicity of Indian garb. On ordinary occasions of council with whites, he would courteously or ambitiously have adopted their costume; now, as he was master of the situation and grantee of favors, he appeared in his own proper style. He wore a handsome buckskin shirt, heavily epauletted and trimmed along the seams with fringe, and leggins and moccasins of the same. For want of Tyrian dye, these robes were regalized by a daubing of red clay. A circlet of otter fur served him for coronet. He was a man of bulk and stature, a chieftainly personage, a fine old Roman, cast in bronze, and modernized with a fresh glazing of vermilion over his antiquated duskiness of hue. And certainly no Roman senator, with adjuncts of whity-brown toga, curule chair, and patrician ancestry, seated to wait his doom from the Gauls, ever had an air of more impassive dignity than this head horse-thief of the Klickatats.
In an interview with a royal personage, his own language should be used. But we, children of an embryo civilization, are trained in the inutilities of tongues dead as Julius Caesar, never in the living idioms of our native princes. I was not, therefore, voluble in Klickatat and Yakimah. Chinook jargon, however, the French of Northwestern diplomatic life, I had mastered. Owhhigh called upon one of his “young men” to interpret his speeches into Chinook. The interpreter stepped forward, and stood expectant, — a youth fraternally like my Spokan Adonis, but with a sprinkle more of intelligence, and a sparkle less of beauty.
My suit, already known, was now formally stated to the chief. I wanted to buy three quadrupeds, and hire one biped guide for a trip across the Cascade Mountains, and on to the Dalles of the Columbia. The distance was about two hundred miles, and I had seven days to effect it. Could it be done?
“Yes,” replied Owhhigh; and then — his bronze face remaining perfectly calm and Rhadamanthine — he began, with most expressive pantomime, an oration, describing my route across the mountains. His talk went on in swaying monotone, rising and falling with the subject, while with vigorous gesture he pictured the changeful journey. The interpreter saw that I comprehended, and did not interfere. Occasionally, when I was posed, I turned to him, and he aided me with some Chinook word, or a sputtered phrase of concentrated meaning. Meanwhile the circle of councillors murmured approval, and grunted coincidence of opinion.
My way was to lead, so said the emphatic recital of Owhhigh, first through an open forest, sprinkled with lakes, and opening into great prairies. By and by the denser forest of firs would meet me, and giant columnar stems, parting, leave a narrow vista, where I could penetrate into the gloom. The dash of a rapid, shallow, white river, the Puyallop, where was a salmon fishery, would cross my trail. Then I must climb through mightier woods and thicker thickets, where great bulks of fallen trees lay, and barricaded the path; must follow up a turbulent river, the S’Kamish, crossing it often, at fords where my horses could hardly bear up against the current. Ever and anon, like a glimpse of blue through a storm, this rough way would be enlivened by a prairie, with beds of fern for my repose, and long grass for my tiring beasts, — grass long as macaroni, so he measured it with outstretched hands. Now the difficulties were to come. He depicted the craggy side of a great mountain, — horses scrambling up stoutly, riders grasping the mane and balancing carefully lest a misstep should send horse and man over a precipice. The summit gained, here again were luxurious tarrying-places, oases of prairie, and perhaps, in some sheltered nook, a bank of last winter’s snow. Here there must be a long nooning, that the horses, tied up the night before in the forest, and browsing wearily on bitter twigs, might recruit. Then came the steep descent, and so, pressing on, I should arrive for my third night’s camp at a prairie, low down on the eastern slope of the mountains, where a mighty hunter, the late Sowee, once dwelt. Up before dawn next morning, — continued Owhhigh’s vivid tale, vivid in gesture, and droning ever in delivery, — up at the peep of day, for this was a long march and a harsh one, and striking soon a clear river flowing east, the Nachchese, I was to follow it. The river grew, and went tearing down a terrible gorge; through this my path led, sometimes in the bed of the stream, sometimes, when precipices drew too close and the gulf too profound, I must climb, and trace a perilous course along the brink far above, where I might bend over and see the water roaring a thousand feet below. At last the valley would broaden, and groves of pine appear. Then my horses, if not too wayworn, could gallop over the immense swells of a rolling prairie-land. Here I would encounter some of the people of Owhhigh. A sharp turn to the right would lead me across a mass of wild, bare hills, into the valley of another stream, the Atinam, where was a mission and men in long robes who prayed at a shrine. By this time my horses would be exhausted; I should take fresh ones, if possible, from the priests’ band, and riding hard across a varied region of hill, prairie, and bulky mountains thick with pines, and then long levels where Skloo a brother-chieftain ranged, I would arrive, after two days from the mission, at a rugged space of hills, and, climbing there, find myself overlooking the vast valley of the Columbia. Barracks and tents in sight. Scamper down the mountain. Fire a gun at river’s bank. Indians hear, cross in canoe, ferry me and swim my horses. All safely done in six crowded days. So said Owhhigh.
This description was given with wonderful vivacity and verity. Owhhigh as a pantomimist would have commanded brilliant success on any stage. Would that there were more like him in this wordy world.
He promised also a guide, his son, now at the camp, and as to my horses, I might choose from the cavalcade. We went out to make selection, all the Klickatats, except Owhhigh, Adonis, and the interpreter, following in bow-legged silence. These three were vocal, and of better model than their fellows. No Indian wished to sell his best horse; each his second-best, at the price of the best. Their backs were in shocking condition. Pads and pack-saddles had galled them so that it was painful to a humane being to mount; but I felt that any one of them, however maltreated, would better in my service. I should ride him hard, but care for him tenderly. Indians have too much respect for “pasaiooks,” blanketeers, Caucasians, to endeavor to cajole us. They suppose that, in a horse-trade, we know what we want. No jockeying was attempted; there were the nags, I might prove them, and buy or not, without solicitation.
The hard terrace without the fort served us for race-course. We galloped the wiry nags up and down, while the owners waited in an emotionless group, calm as gamblers. Should any one sell a horse, he would not only pocket the price, but be spurred to new thefts from tribes hostile or friendly to fill the vacancy; yet all were too proud to exhibit eagerness, or puff their property.
At last, from the least bad I chose first for my pack animal a strawberry roan cob, a “chunk of a horse,” a quadruped with the legs of an elephant, the head of a hippopotamus, and a peculiar gait; — he trod most emphatically, as if he were striving to go through the world’s crust at every step. This habit suggested the name he at once received. I called him Antipodes, in honor of the region he was aiming at, — a name of ill omen, suggesting a spot where I often wished him afterwards. My second choice, the mount for my guide, was Antipodes’ repeated, with slight improvements of form and manner. Gubbins I dubbed him, appropriately, with a first accolade, — accolade often repeated, during our acquaintance, with less mildness. Hard horses were Antipodes and Gubbins, — hard trotters, hard-mouthed, hardhided brutes. Each was delivered to me with a hair rope twisted for bridle, about his lower lip, sawing it raw.
And now the most important decision remained to be made. It was nothing to me that a misty phantom, my guide, should be jolted over the passes of Tacoma on a Gubbins or an Antipodes, but my own seat, should it be upon Rosinante or Bucephalus, upon an agile caracoler or a lubberly plodder? Step forward, then, cool and careless Klickatat, from thy lair of dirty blanket, with that black pony of thine. The black was satisfactory. His ribs, indeed, were far too visible, and there were concavities where there should have been the convex fulness of well-conditioned muscle, but he had a plucky, wiry look, and his eye showed spirit without spite. His lope was as elastic as the bounding of a wind-sped cloud over a rough mountain-side. His other paces were neat and vigorous. I bought him at more dollars than either of his comrades of clumsier shape and duller hue. Indians do not love their horses well enough to name them. My new purchase I baptized Klale. Klale in Chinook jargon is Black, — and thus do, mankind, putting commonplace into foreign tongues or into big words of their own, fancy that they make it uncommonplace and original.
There are several requisites for travel. First, a world and a region of world to traverse; second, a traveller; third, means of conveyance, legs human or other, barks, carts, enchanted carpets, and the like; fourth, guidance by man personal, or man impersonal acting by roads, guide-boards, maps, and itineraries; fifth, multifarious wherewithals. The first two requisites seem to be indispensable in the human notion of travel, and existed in my case. The third I had provided; my stud was complete. A guide was promised; after an interview with Owhhigh I could give credence to his unseen son, and believe that the fourth requisite of my journey was also ready. I must now arrange my miscellaneous outfit. For this purpose the resources of Fort Nisqually were infinite. Mr. H. approached the dusty warehouses; he wielded the wand of an enchanter, and forth from dim corners came a pack-saddle for Antipodes, a pad-saddle for Gubbins, and great hide packs for my traps. Forth from the shelves of the shop came paraphernalia, — tin pot, tin pan, tin cups, and the needful luxuries of tea and sugar. My pork and hard-tack had been already provided at Steilacoom, and Mr. H. added to them what I deemed half a dozen gnarled lignum-vitae roots. Experimental whittling proved these to be cured ox-tongues, a precious accession. My list was complete.
I was lodged in a small cabin adjoining the factor’s cottage. All my sundries had been piled here for packing, and I was standing, somewhat mazed, in the centre of a group of tin pots, gnarled tongues, powder-horns, papers of tea, blankets, bread-bags, bridles, spurs, and toggery, when in walked Owhhigh, followed by several of his suite.
Owhhigh seated himself on the floor, with an air of condescension, and for some time regarded my preparations in grave silence. Mr. H. had told me that his parade of an interpreter during the council was only to make all impression. Some men regard all assumption of ignorance as lofty. Now, however, Owhhigh, dropping in unceremoniously, laid aside his sham dignity with a purpose. We had before agreed upon the terms of payment for my guide. The ancient horse-thief sat like a Pacha, smoking an inglorious dhudeen, and at last, glancing at certain articles of raiment of mine, thus familiarly, in Chinook, broke silence.
Owhhigh. “Halo she collocks nika tenas; no breeches hath my son” (the guide).
I. (in an Indianesque tone of some surprise, but great indifference). “Ah hagh!”
Owhhigh. “Pe halo shirt; and no shirt.”
I. (assenting, with equal indifference). “Ah hagh!”
Owhhigh smokes, and is silent, and Spokan Adonis fugues in, “Pe wake yaka shoes; and no shoes hath he.”
Another aide-de-camp takes up the strain. “Yahwah mitlite shoes, closche copa Owhhigh tenas; there are shoes (pointing to a pair of mine) good for the son of Owhhigh.”
I. “Stick shoes ocook, — wake closche copa siwash; hard shoes (not moccasins) those, — not good for Indian.”
Owhhigh. “Hyas tyee mika, — hin mitlite ikta, — halo ikta mitlite copa nika tenas, — mika tikky hin potlatch; great chief thou, — with thee plenty traps abide, — no traps hath my son, — thou wilt give him abundance.”
I. “Pe hyas tyee Owhhigh, — conoway ikta mitlite-pe hin yaka potlatch copa liticum; and a great chief is Owhhigh, — all kinds of property are his, and many presents does he make to his people.”
Profound silence followed these mutual hints. Owhhigh smoked in thoughtful whiffs, and the pipe went round. The choir bore their failure stoically. They had done their best that their comrade might be arrayed at my expense, and if I did not choose to throw in a livery, I must bear the shame and the unsavoriness if he were frowzy. At last, to please Owhhigh, and requite him for the entertainment of his oratory, I promised that, if his son were faithful, I would give him a generous premium, possibly the very shirt and other articles they had admired. Whereupon, after more unwordy whiffs and ineffectual hints that they too were needy, Owhhigh and his braves lounged off, the gloomy bow-legged ones, who had not spoken, bringing up the rear. I soon had everything in order, tongues, tea, and tin properly stowed, and was ready to be off.
Experienced campaigners attempt no more than a start and a league or two the first day of a long march. To burst the ties that bind us to civilization is an epoch of itself. The first camp of an expedition must not be beyond reclamation of forgotten things. Starts, too, will often be false starts. Raw men and raw horses and mules will condense into a muddle, or explode into a centrifugal stampede, a “blazing star,” as packers name it. Then the pack-horse with the flour bolts and makes paste of his burden, up to his spine in a neighboring pool. The powder mule lies down in the ashes of a cooking fire. The pork mule, in greasy gallop, trails fatness over the plain. In a thorny thicket, a few white shreds reveal where the tent mule tore through. Another beast flies madly, while after him clink all the cannikins, battering themselves shapeless upon his flanks. It is chaos, and demands hours perhaps of patience to make order again.
Such experience in a minor degree might befall even my little party of three horses and two men. I therefore, for better speed, resolved to disentangle myself this evening, and have a clear field to-morrow. Recalcitrant Antipodes, therefore, suffered compulsion, and was packed with his complex burdens. Leaving him and Gubbins with Owhhigh to follow and be disciplined, Mr. H. and I galloped on under the oaks, over the trap-rock, toward the Klickatat camp. Klale, with ungalling saddle, and a merciful rider of nine stone weight, loped on gayly.
The Klickatats were encamped on a prairie near the house of a settler, five miles from the Fort. Just without the house was a group of them gambling. Presently Owhhigh followed Mr. H. and me into the farmer’s kitchen, bringing forward for introduction his son, my guide. He was one of the gambling group. I inspected him narrowly. My speed, my success, my safety, depended upon his good faith. Owhhigh bore no very high character, — why should son be honester than father? To an Indian the temptation to play foul by a possessor of horses, guns, blankets, and traps was enormous.
My future comrade was a tallish stripling of twenty, dusky-hued and low-browed. A mat of long, careless, sheenless black hair fell almost to his shoulders. Dull black were his eyes, not veined with agate-like play of color, as are the eyes of the sympathetic and impressionable. His chief physiognomical characteristic was a downward look, like the brown study of a detected pickpocket, inquiring with himself whether villany pays; his chief personal and seemingly permanent characteristic was squalor. Squalid was his hickory shirt, squalid his buckskin leggins, long widowed of their fringe. Yet it was not a mean, but a proud uncleanliness, like that of a fakir, or a voluntarily unwashed hermit. He flaunted his dirtiness in the face of civilization, claiming respect for it, as merely a different theory of the toilette. I cannot say that this new actor in my drama looked trustworthy, but there was a certain rascally charm in his rather insolent dignity, and an exciting mystery in his indecipherable phiz. I saw that there was no danger of our becoming friends. There existed an antagonism in our natures which might lead to, defiance and hostility, or possibly terminate in mutual respect.
Loolowcan was his name. I took him for better or for worse, without questions.
Owhhigh fully vouched for him, — but who would vouch for the voucher? Who could satisfy me that the horse-thieving morality of papa might not result in scalp-thieving principles in the youth? At least, he knew the way unerringly. My path was theirs, of constant transit from inland to seaside. As to his conduct, Owhhigh gave him an impressive harangue, stretching forth his arm in its fringed sleeve, and gesturing solemnly. This paternal admonition was, for my comprehension, expressed in Chinook jargon, doubly ludicrous with Owhhigh’s sham stateliness of rhetoric. His final injunctions to young hopeful may be condensed as follows: —
    “Great chief go to Dalles. Want to go fast. Six days. Good pay. S’pose want fresh horses other side mountains, — you get ’em. Get everything. Look sharp. No fear bad Indian at Dalles; great chief not let ’em beat you. Be good boy! Good bye!”
Owhhigh presented me, as a parting gift, his whip, which I had admired, a neat baton with a long hide lash and loop of otter fur for the wrist I could by its aid modify, without altering, the system of education already pursued with my horses. Homeric studies had taught me that the gifts of heroes should be reciprocal. I therefore, for lack of more significant token, prayed Owhhigh to accept a piece of silver. We shook hands elaborately and parted. He was hung or shot last summer in the late Indian wars of that region. I regret his martyrdom, and hope that in his present sphere his skill as a horse-thief is better directed.
I had also adieux to offer to Mr. H., and thanks for his kind energy in forwarding me. From him, as from all the gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Northwest, I had received the most genuine hospitality, hearty entertainment, legendary and culinary.
And now for my long ride across the country! Here, Loolowcan, is Gubbins, thy steed, — drive thou Antipodes, clumsiest of cobs. I have mounted Klale, — let us gallop eastward.
Eastward I galloped with what eager joy! I flung myself again alone upon the torrent of adventure, with a lurking hope that I might prove new sensations of danger, new tests of manhood in its confident youth. I was going homeward across the breadth of the land, and with the excitement of this large thought there came a slight reactionary sinking of heart, and a dread lest I had exhausted onward life, and now, turning back from its foremost verge, should find myself dwindling into dull conservatism, and want of prophetic faith. I feared that I was retreating from the future into the past. Yet if one but knew it, his retreats are often his wisest and bravest advances.
I had, however, little time for meditation, morbid or healthy. Something always happens, in the go and the gallop of travel, demanding quick, instinctive action. Antipodes was in this case the agent to make me know my place. Antipodes, pointing his nose eastward toward his native valleys, had pounded along the trail for a couple of miles over the hillocks of a stony prairie, and on his back rattled my packs, for solace or annoyance, according to his own views. At a fork of the trail, Loolowcan urged Gubbins to the front, to indicate the route. Right-about went Antipodes. Back toward Squally bolted that stifflegged steed, — stiff-legged no more, but far too limber, — and louder on his back rattled my pots and pans, a merry sound, could I have listened with no thought of the pottage and pancakes that depended upon the safety of my tin-ware. Still I could be amused at his grotesque gallop, for he had not discomfited me, and I could chuckle at the thought of another sound, when he was overtaken, and when upon a strawberry-roan surface fell the whip, the Owhhigh gift, now swinging at my wrist by its loop of otter-skin, for greater momentum of stroke. Clattering over the paved prairie we hied, the defaulter a little in advance and artfully dodging, — Loolowcan and I close upon him. Still more artfully at last he made show of finding the trail, and went pounding along, as if no traitorous stampede had happened. A total failure was this crafty sham, this too late repentance and acknowledgment of defeat. Vengeance will not thus be baffled. Men discover with bitterness that nature continues to use the scourge long after they have reformed, until relapse becomes impossible by the habit of virtue. So Antipodes experienced. Pendulum whips do not swing for nothing, and he never again attempted absolute revolt, but grumblingly acknowledged his duty to his master.
This was an evening of August, in a climate where summer is never scorching nor blasting. We breathe air as a matter of course, unobservant usually of how fair a draught it is. But to-night the chalice of nature was brimming with a golden haze, which touched the lips with luxurious winy flavor.
So inhaling delicate gray-gold puffs of indolent summer-evening air, and much tranquillized by such beverage, mild yet rich, I rode on, now under the low oaks, now over a ripe prairie, and now beside a lake fresh, pure, and feminine. And whenever a vista opened eastward, Tacoma appeared above the low-lying mists of the distance. “Polikely, spose mika tikky, nesika mitlite copa Comcomli house; to-night, if you please, we stop at Comcomli’s house,” said Loolowcan the taciturn.
Night was at hand, and where was the house? It is not wise to put off choice of camping-ground till dark; foresight is as needful to a campaigner as to any other mortal. But presently, in a pretty little prairie, we reached the spot where a certain Montgomery, wedded to a squaw, had squatted, and he should be our host. His name, too articulate for Indian lips, they had softened to Comcomli. A similar corruption befell the name, of the Scotticized chief of the Chinooks, whom Astor’s people found at Astoria, and whom Mr. Irving has given to history.
Mr. Comcomli was absent, but his comely “mild-eyed, melancholy” squaw received us hospitably. Her Squallyamish proportions were oddly involved in limp robes of calico, such as her sisters from Pike County wear. She gave us a supper of fried pork, bread, and tea. We encamped upon her floor, and were somewhat trodden under foot by little half-breed Comcomlis, patrolling about during the night-watches.
Loolowcan here began to show the white feather. His heart sank when he contemplated the long leagues of the trail. He wanted to return. He was solitary, — homesick for the congenial society of other youths with matted hair, dusky skins, paint-daubed cheeks, low brows, and distinguished frowziness of apparel. He wanted to squat by camp-fires, and mutter guttural gibberish to such as these. The old, undying feud of blackguard against gentleman seemed in danger of pronouncing itself. Besides, he feared hostile siwashes at the Dalles of the Columbia. In his superstitious soul of a savage he dreaded, or pretended to dread, some terrible magical influence in the gloomy forests of the mountains. Of evil omen to me, and worse than any demon spell in the craggy dells of the Cascades, was this vacillation of my guide. However, I argued somewhat, and somewhat wheedled and bullied the doubter. Loolowcan was harder to keep in line than Antipodes. One may tame Bucephalus, but several new elements of character are to be considered when the attempt is made to manage Pagan savages.
At last my guide seemed to waver over to the side of good faith, with a dishonest air and a pretence of wishing to oblige. Shaken confidence hardly returns, and from hour to hour, as the little Comcomlis pranced over my person, and trampled my upturned nose a temporary aquiline, I awoke and studied the dark spot where my dusky comrade lay. Each time I satisfied myself that he had not flitted. Nor did he. When morning came, his heart grew bigger. Difficulties portentous in the ghostly obscure of night vanished with cock-crowing. He contemplated his fair proportions, and felt that new clothes would become them. He rose, stalked about, and longed for the dignified drapery of a new blanket. How the other low-browed and squalid, from whom he had been selected for his knowledge as a linguist and his talents as a guide, — how they would scoff, and call him Kallapooya, meanest of Indians, if he sneaked back to camp bootless! He turned to me, and saw me a civilized man, in garb and guise to be envied. So for a time treachery was argued out of the heart of Loolowcan the frowzy.