"Yak-ka hy-ak" (he can come), and the bargain was closed.
I remained at the store and talked with Mr. Barker and his friends until ten o'clock, when he took a lantern and piloted me over to the Indian rancherie, where I was to lodge. I took my sleeping-bag with me and thanked my stars that I did, for notwithstanding the assurances given me by good Mr. Barker that the Indian woman was as good a housekeeper as the average white woman, I was afraid of vermin. I have never known an Indian to be without the hemipterous little insect, Pediculus (humanus) capitis. Possibly there may be some Indians who do not wear them; I simply say I have never had the pleasure of knowing one, and I have known a great many, too. I seriously doubt if one has ever yet lived many days at a time devoid of the companionship of these pestiferous little creatures. In fact, an Indian and a louse are natural allies—boon companions—and are as inseparable as the boarding-house bed and the bedbug. The red man is so inured to the ravages of his parasitic companion, so accustomed to have him rustling around on his person and foraging for grub, that he pays little or no attention to the insect, and seems hardly to feel its bite.
You will rarely see an Indian scratch his head or, in fact, any portion of his person, as a white man does when he gets a bite. Lo gives forth no outward sign that he is thickly settled, and it is only when he sits or lies down in the hot sun that the inhabitants of his hair and clothing come to the front; then you may see them crawling about like roaches in a hotel kitchen. Or, when he has lain down on a board, or your tent canvas, or any light-colored substance and got up and gone away, leaving some of his neighbors behind, then you know he is—like others of his race—the home of a large colony of insects.
When Mary and her husband, George, saw my roll of bedding, which they supposed to be simply blankets, they protested to Mr. Barker that I would not need them, that there was "hy-iu mit-lite pa-se-se" (plenty of covering on the bed). I told them, however, that I could sleep better in my own blankets and preferred to use them. I took the bundle into my room, spread the sleeping-bag on the bed and crawled into it. The outer covering of the bag being of thick, hard canvas, I hoped it would prove an effectual barrier against the assaults of the vermin, and that they might not find the portal by which I entered, and so it proved.
George and Mary live in a very well-built, comfortable, one-story frame cottage, divided into two rooms; the kitchen, dining-room, parlor and family sleeping-room all in one, and the spare room being the other. The house has four windows and one door, a shingle roof and a board floor. They have a cooking-stove, several chairs, a table, cupboard, etc. The bedstead on which I slept was homemade, but neat and substantial. It was furnished with a white cotton tick, filled with straw, feather pillows, several clean-looking blankets, and a pair of moderately clean cotton sheets. I have slept in much worse-looking beds in hotels kept by white people.
GEORGE AND MARY.
This Indian village, Harrison river, or Skowlitz, as the Indians call both the river and the village, is composed of about twenty families, living in houses of about the same class and of the same general design as the one described, although some are slightly larger and better, while others are not quite so good. All have been built by white carpenters, or the greater part of the work was done by them, and the lumber and other materials were manufactured by white men. None of the dwellings have ever been painted inside or out, but there is a neat mission church in the village that has been honored with a coat of white paint. There are a few log shacks standing near, that look very much as if they had been built by native industry. The frame houses, I am informed, were erected by the Government and the church by the Catholic Missionary Society.
