"The best thing we can do is to camp," said Oliver.
I readily assented. So our first night's camp was scarcely twelve miles from where we had started in the morning. It was a fine camping place. A beautiful pebbly beach extended almost to the water's edge even at low tide. There was a grassy level spit, a background of evergreen giant-fir timber, and clear, cool water gushing out from the bank near by. And such fuel for the camp fire!—broken limbs with just enough pitch to make a cheerful blaze and yet body enough to last well. We felt so happy that we were almost glad the journey had been interrupted.
Oliver was the carpenter of the party, the tent-builder, wood-getter, and general roustabout, while I, the junior, was "chief cook and bottle-washer."
An encampment of Indians being near, a party of them soon visited our camp and began making signs for trade.
"Mika tik eh[1] clams?" said one of the matrons of the party.
"What does she say, Oliver?"
"I'm blessed if I know, but it looks as if she wanted to sell some clams."
After considerable dickering, with signs and gestures and words many times repeated, we were able to impart the information that we wanted a lesson in cookery. If she would show us how to cook the clams, we would buy some. This brought some merriment in the camp. The idea that there lived a person who did not know how to cook clams! Without saying by your leave or anything else, the motherly looking native woman began tearing down our camp fire.
Edward S. Curtis