Thus the white man’s big canoe found rest, and sailors crowded the rail to give signs of gratitude to the strange, strong-armed pilots.
The captain let down his stairs, that they might come on deck and exchange mutual feelings of each heart. On the one hand, that of thankfulness, that misfortunes make mankind akin, and used such occasions to teach the lion that the mouse may be his master when circumstances bring his ability into demand.
The white man felt gratitude, and made proof of it by loading the red man’s “hollow tree” with rich stores of choice sugars from the islands, blankets made in colder zones; with clothing that illy fitted the red man’s limbs; with lines, and nets, and hooks, and spears of foreign make, and with weapons of
fiery breath and noisy mouth, that poorly mated the bow and arrow, though mating good by force of execution the loss in warning talk.
The chieftains, too, gave back, with answering hand and smiling face, the gladness of their hearts that they had found opportunity to serve the white man.
When they departed, the “tyee” bade them come again. This was a great day for the chieftain’s household, when they landed beneath the willow trees near their e-li-he (home). The women, with great, wondering eyes at the sight of so many ic-tas (goods), began to unload the “hollow-tree canoe,” and, as each article new to them came in sight, they would wonder and chatter and try them on, until at last they stood clothed in sailor’s garb, of jacket, pants and shoes. To their camps they came, loaded with the precious freights, and, coming to their own, the little ones would cry and run, shouting, “Hal-lu-me, til-li-cum” (strangers); nor would they trust to their mothers’ voices until they had put aside their costumes.
These chiefs still laugh at the surprise they felt at sight of what they supposed to be the new-found friends, until the merry cluchmen (women) shouted, “Cla-hoy-em-six, tyee?” (How do you do, chief?) They quickly rose from their cougar skin and panther’s pelt, caught the bogus sailors, and quickly robbed them of their borrowed clothes.
That night, while the sun was going to rest in his bed of flaming billows, on the ship’s deck and on the sand of the red man’s floor, happy hearts bade each “Good-night.” The white man was happy now that his home was gently rocked by flowing tides. The
red men, happy with their til-li-cums, retailing in guttural notes their great adventures, and dancing the pot-lach dance (giving dance), would stop, and with their hands divide the prizes won, without thought of shells, or Indian coin, or white man’s chick-a-mon (money). When “to-morrow’s sun” had climbed over the craggy ledges of the coast mountain, and sent out his fiery messengers to announce his coming, they came to the vessel’s deck, and found no watchman there. They peeped into the forecastle and cabin, and waked the slumberers up to welcome the new morn begun on the bosom of Ya-quina Bay.
At the Indian lodge, the soft voice of cluchman, mingling with the murmur of rippling rills, that from snow-banks high on the mountain side came hurrying down to quench the thirst of sailor or of savage; maybe, the briny lips of the sea-monster or salmon fish, that come in to rest from surging waters and bask awhile in the smooth currents of the bay.