After the Echeloots (whom the violin and the dancing had so entertained), more Indians were met. The banks of this Columbia were thickly populated. These Indians lived in wooden houses, too—houses walled and raftered with planks faced and trimmed by fire or by knives and little axes. The houses were furnished with bedsteads.
“As good houses as some settlers’ houses back in the Illinois country,” declared Captain Clark, who was constantly exploring among them.
The canoes that the Indians cleverly managed were large, hollowed from a single log, with high bows curving upward; farther on down, bows and sterns both were high, and had figures of men and beasts. Some of the Indians owned articles of white men’s manufacture, which they said came from below.
“What you say dese hyar Injuns call demselves, Marse Will?” York was heard to ask.
“Skilloots, York.”
“An’ what were dose we met ’foh we met dese Galoots?”
“The Chilluckittequaws, York.”
“Jes’ so,” gasped York. “But I ain’t gwine to say it.”
On November 2 the canoes were partly carried around, partly slid through, the rapids which formed the foot of other rapids termed by the captains the Great Shute. Presently the river opened two miles wide, and smooth and placid. That night the water rose nine inches on a stake set at the river’s edge in front of the camp.
“We’re in tidewater, lads!” announced Captain Lewis. “The ocean tides ascend this far. That means there are no more rapids; the ocean itself can’t be very distant.”