The Law in Our Own Hands.
More than once, realizing the awful effect of this dread traffic upon the natives, the Missionary felt impelled to take the law into his own hands in dealing with this illicit trade.
WITCH DOCTOR.
[p. 119]
CROSBY TEACHING
INDIAN CHIEF.
“COAL TYEE.”
[p. 127]
WITCH DOCTOR’S WIFE.
[p. 119]
One fine day in Victoria, another preacher and myself, crossing the bay on the old ferry boat, saw a canoe coming from under a wharf with boxes in it. I said to my friend, “That looks like whiskey.” We hurried the ferryman up, watching at the same time where this canoe would land. Leaving my friend, I ran over the hill, shouting as I passed the chief’s house, in his own tongue, “Give me an axe, an axe I must have.” Jim, the chief, successor to old King Freezee, ran out of his house with an axe in his hand. Seizing it I ran towards the canoe, and just as the men landed their cases of “tangleleg,” as it was called at that time, I smashed them open with the axe, sending the blade through the five-gallon coal oil cans full of this terrible stuff. Much of the liquor then sold to the Indians was a vile combination of camphene, coal oil and other fiery material, which seemed to set the natives wild when they drank it. The men by this time had run away, one up the hillside and the other some distance down the beach, looking back to see what would be done. I do not know whether they thought I was an officer of the law or not, but at any rate we got rid of that much of the abominable stuff—“chain lightning” it was sometimes called—which might have caused much trouble and loss of life in the camp.