A Siwash Indian in his canoe.
As in the trip across the Plains, we must provide our own transportation. Here and there might be a vessel loading piles and square timber for the San Francisco market, but not a steamer was then plying on the Sound; there was not even a sailing craft that essayed to carry passengers.
As the tide drew us off on the placid waters of the bay at Olympia, with just a breath of air stirring, our little eighteen-foot craft behaved splendidly. The slight ripples jostling against the bow brought dreams of a pleasure trip, to make amends for the tiresome pack across the country.
We floated lazily with the tide, sometimes taking a few strokes with the oars, and at other times whistling for the wind. The little town of Olympia to the south became dimmed by distance. But we were no sooner fairly out of sight of the little village than the question came up which way to go. What channel should we take?
"Let the tide decide; that will carry us out toward the ocean."
"No, we are drifting into another bay; that cannot be where we want to go."
"Why, we are drifting right back almost in the same direction from which we came, but into another bay! We'll pull this way to that point to the northeast."
"But there seems a greater opening of water to the northwest."
"Yes, but I do not see any way out there."
So we talked and pulled and puzzled, until finally it dawned upon us that the tide had turned and we were being carried back into South Bay, to almost the very spot whence we had come.