This present from the Indian let in a flood of light upon the Indian character. We had made them a present first, it was true, but did not expect any return, except perhaps good will, and in fact, cannot now say we particularly expected that, but were impelled to do our act of courtesy from the manner of their treatment and from the evident desire to be on friendly terms. From that time on during the trip, and I may say, for all time since, I have found the Indians of Puget Sound ready to reciprocate acts of kindness, and hold in high esteem a favor granted if not accompanied by acts apparently designed to simply gain an advantage.
We often forget the sharp eyes and ears of little children and let slip words that are quickly absorbed to their hurt by affecting their conduct. While the Indian is really not a suspicious person, nevertheless, he is quick to detect and as quick to resent a real or supposed slight as the little five-year-old who discovers his elders in their fibs or deceit. Not that the Indian expects socially to be received in your house or at your table, yet little acts of kindness, if done without apparent design, touch their better nature and are repaid more than a hundred fold, for you thereafter have a friend and neighbor, and not an enemy or suspicious maligner.
All of this did not dawn on the young men at the time, though their treatment of the Indians was in harmony with friendly feelings which we found everywhere and made a lasting impression.
Subsequent experience, of course, has confirmed these first impressions with the wider field of observation in after years, while employing large numbers of these people in the hop fields of which I hope to write later. And so now must end this chapter with the subject of the "cruise" to be continued at another sitting.
CHAPTER XIII.
CRUISE ON PUGET SOUND.
"Keep to the right, as the law directs," is an old western adage that governs travelers on the road, but we kept to the right because we wanted to follow the shore as we thought it safer, and besides, why not go that way as well as any other,—it was all new to us. So, on the second morning, as we rounded Johnson's Point and saw no channel opening in any direction; saw only water in the foreground and timber beyond, we concluded to skirt the coast line and see what the day would bring forth. This led us a southeasterly course and in part doubling back with that traveled the previous day, and past what became the historical grounds of the Medicine Creek Treaty Council, or, rather leaving this two miles to our right as the Nisqually flats were encountered. Here we were crowded to a northerly course, leaving the Nisqually House on the beach to the east without stopping for investigation.
According to Finlayson's journal, as I afterwards ascertained, this had been built twenty-three years before. At least, some house had been built on this spot at that time (1829 or 1830), though the fort by that name one-fourth mile back from the water was not constructed until the summer of 1833, just twenty years previous to our visit.