In a cabin at Alki one morning, a white woman was frying fish. Warming by the fire stood “Duwampsh Curley;” the odor of the fish was doubtless appetizing; Curley was moved with a wish to partake of it and reached out a dark and doubtful-looking hand to pick out a piece. The white woman had a knife in her hand to turn the pieces and raised it to strike the imprudent hand which was quickly and sheepishly withdrawn.
Had he been as haughty and ill-natured as some savages the result might have been disastrous, but he took the reproof meekly and mended his manners instead of retaliating.
Now and then the settlers were spectators in dramas of Indian romance.
“Old Alki John” had a wife whose history became interesting. For some unknown reason she ran away from Puyallup to Alki. Her husband followed her, armed with a Hudson Bay musket and a frame of mind that boded no good. While A. A. Denny, D. T. Denny and Alki John were standing together on the bank one day Old John’s observing eye caught sight of a strange Indian ascending the bank, carrying his gun muzzle foremost, a suggestive position not indicative of peaceful intentions. “Nannitch” (look) he said quietly; the stranger advanced boldly, but Old John’s calm manner must have had a soothing effect upon the bloodthirsty savage, as he concluded to “wa-wa” (talk) a little before fighting.
So the gutturals and polysyllables of the native tongue fairly flew about until evidently, as Mr. D. T. Denny relates, some sort of compromise was effected. Not then understanding the language, he could not determine just the nature of the arrangement, but has always thought it was amicably settled by the payment of money by “Old Alki John” to her former husband. This Indian woman was young and fair, literally so, as her skin was very white, she being the whitest squaw ever seen among them; her head was not flattened, she was slender and of good figure. Possibly she had white blood in her veins; her Indian name was “Si-a-ye.”
Being left a widow, she was not left to pine alone very long; another claimed her hand and she became Mrs. Yeow-de-pump. When this one joined his brethren in the happy hunting ground, she remained a widow for some time, but is now the wife of the Indian Zacuse, mentioned in another place.
There were women cabin builders. Each married woman was given half the donation claim by patent from the government; improvement on her part of the claim was therefore necessary.
On a fine, fair morning in the early spring of 1852, two women set forth from the settlement at Alki, to cross Elliott Bay in a fishing canoe, with Indians to paddle and a large dog to protect them from possible wild animals in the forest, for in that wild time, bears, cougars and wolves roamed the shores of Puget Sound.
Landed on the opposite shore, the present site of Seattle, they made their way slowly and with difficulty through the dense undergrowth of the heavy forest, there being not so much as a trail, over a long distance. Arrived at the chosen spot, they cut with their own hands some small fir logs and laid the foundation of a cabin. While thus employed the weather underwent a change and on the return was rather threatening. The wind and waves were boisterous, the canine passenger was frightened and uneasy, thus adding to the danger. The water washed into the canoe and the human occupants suffered no little anxiety until they reached the beach at home.
One of the conditions of safe travel in a canoe is a quiet and careful demeanor, the most approved plan being to sit down in the bottom of the craft and stay there.