But a night’s sleep had cooled the botanist’s ardor. He excused himself from the contest, and as daylight cleared the fumes of their wine away, the two Scotchmen, no doubt, laughed heartily over their foolishness.
The Shushwaps were warlike and treacherous and changeable as wind. Living alone among them, it may be guessed that the white trader needed the proverbial wisdom of the serpent. Chief of the Shushwaps in 1841, was that Tranquille, after whom the river is named. Tranquille and Black had had words over a gun, which another Indian had left at the stores; but the chief had gone home with good humor restored. Almost at once he fell ill.
“An enemy hath done this! It is the evil eye!” muttered his wife.
“No,” answered the chief, “my only sorrow is that before I die I cannot take by the hand my best friend, Mr. Black, and ask forgiveness for any hasty words.”
“Subtle is the evil medicine of the white men,” answered his wife.
“Peace, fool!” Then to the Indians in his tent: “Pay no heed to her words. Mr. Black’s heart is good. Ask him to have me buried after the white man’s fashion.”
After his death the chief’s wishes were fulfilled, and Mr. Black sent across a board coffin for the body.
But in the dead chief’s lodge lived a nephew to whom the disconsolate widow made moan.
“Ah, great chief, must thy spirit go to the happy hunting grounds alone, while he who sent thee thither bathes in the blessed sunlight? Ah, that there is none to avenge thee! Who shall now be our chief? Our young men are cowards!”
“Enraged beyond endurance,” relates Bancroft, “the youth sprang to his feet and gave the old woman a smart slap on the cheek.