It should be understood that nearly every tribe has a language distinct from its neighbors, and it was feared that some difficulty would arise in managing a council with a people who were so little known to other tribes, except by their daring acts of warfare; hence this arrangement with Tah-home and his squaw Ka-ko-na (lost child).
It required some strong promises to reassure Tah-home of the safety of this trip, in so far as it affected his property interest in the squaw; for at this time his thoughts were confined to this view of the case. When assured that, in the event the Snakes should claim his wife, and succeed in persuading her to remain with them, he should have two horses, he was satisfied to proceed.
One or two days after we encamped near Cañon City, and, in pity for the poorly clad squaw, we had her dressed in a full suit of new clothes. From that time henceforth Tah-home seemed to be very much attached to his wife. “Fine feathers make fine birds” among Indian people as elsewhere.
Pursuing our journey, we at last stand on the
summit of the Blue Mountains, one hundred and eighty miles south of “The Dalles.” Looking northward, spread out before us, a great high plain appears in full view, though hundred of miles away; high mountains, looking in the distance like a wooded fringe, and their high peaks, like taller trees that had outgrown their neighbors, were clothed in snow, making a marked contrast with their shining tops. To the south an elevated plateau of open country, bleak and dreary in its aspect. A few miles on we find a boiling spring of clear water, and near it a cool one.
Passing south of the summit, about fifty miles, we reach “Camp Harney,” a three-company military post established here to guard the Indians. There was a time when it was necessary. Indeed, it may be again.
CHAPTER XV.
THE COUNCIL WITH THE SNAKE INDIANS—O-CHE-O.