We left Jim and his wife in charge of the rest of the stores. We would not allow them to erect tent or tepee. They were to make themselves a wigwam of brush, and to cover all our stuff with bushes, for we did not wish to attract attention, you understand.
I told Jim he might try for gold whilst they were waiting for our return—that it would be good if he could take some back to the coast; and Fan, laughing merrily, said, "Plenty chickamin (gold) hyar, my will make pile hyar, my feel it in my tum-tum."
These Indians well understood what a pile meant, but their notion of its amount, and what to do with one when they had secured it, were very funny.
On the second night, after having come, as we thought, about forty miles, behold Meade and I hauling our canoe to shore and arrived at our journey's end. For some hours before my companion had been greatly excited. "See that stump?" he would cry. "Yes." "Well, I did that. I camped in there one day."
A little farther on he pointed to a bank covered with brush. "See that bare place there?" "Yes." "Well, I tried a pan of stuff there, and got a good show. I was half a mind to stay on and give it a good examination. I'm glad enough I did not."
From a considerable distance he declared he could see the dug-out which he had made, and where he had passed some weeks; and as we drew quite near he exclaimed with delight, "All's right. I don't believe a living thing has been here since I left last September. Hurrah!"
We had been forty-five days on the journey in. Considering all things, we had done well. It was now, we believed, the third day of July, but we were not certain. We had endeavoured to keep a log of our voyaging, but from there always being daylight now, and from the irregularity with which we had eaten and slept, we were not very sure even of the day of the week!
[[1]] "Clark, how are you?" is the greeting Sir James (then Mr) Douglas used to his second-in-command many years ago, which the Indians caught up, and it is to this day the form of greeting between whites and reds on the Pacific coast.