And so Romance drew near to me again, this time perched up in the long-empty stern-sheets of my boat. This one was neither an infant nor a centurienne, but rather a fair compromise between the two. Nor was she especially fair nor especially compromising (one couldn’t expect that of a sixty-year-old squaw); but she was the most trusting soul I ever met, and that’s something. The falls were thundering not fifty yards below—near enough to wet us with their up-blown spray,—and yet not one word of warning did she utter about giving the brink a wide birth in pulling across. Not that I needed such a warning, for the first thing I did was to start pulling up-stream in the slack water; but, all the same, it was a distinct compliment to have it omitted. As it turned out, there was nothing to bother about, for the current was scarcely swifter in mid-stream than along the banks. It was an easy pull. Romance beamed on me all the way, and once, when one of her stubby old toes came afoul of my hob-nailed boot, she bent over and gave a few propitiary rubs to—the boot ... as if that had lost any cuticle. And at parting, when I waved her money-bag aside and told her to keep her chickamon to spend on the movies, she came and patted me affectionately on the shoulder, repeating over and over “Close tum-tum mika!” And that, in Chinook, means: “You’re very much all right!” As far as I can remember, that is the only unqualified praise I ever had from a lady—one of that age, I mean. Squiring squaws—especially dear old souls like that one—is a lot better fun than a man would think.
LIFTED DRAWBRIDGE ON CELILO CANAL (above)
TUMWATER GORGE OF THE GRAND DALLES (below)
“IMSHALLAH” IN THE LOCK AT FIVE-MILE (left)
“IMSHALLAH” HALF WAY THROUGH THE CELILO CANAL (right)
It was four o’clock when I turned up at the lock-master’s house at Celilo, and then to find that that worthy had just taken his gun and gone off up on the cliffs to try and bag a goose. As it would probably be dark before he returned, his wife reckoned I had better put up with them for the night and make an early start through the Canal the following morning. The lock-master, a genial Texan, came down with his goose too late it get it ready for supper, but not to get it picked that night. Indeed, we made rather a gala occasion of it. “Mistah” Sides got out his fiddle and played “The Arkansaw Traveller” and “Turkey in the Straw,” the while his very comely young wife accompanied on the piano and their two children, the village school-marm and myself collaborated on the goose. It was a large bird, but many hands make light work; that is, as far as getting the feathers off the goose was concerned. Cleaning up the kitchen was another matter. As it was the giddy young school-teacher who started the trouble by putting feathers down my neck, I hope “Missus” Sides made that demure-eyed minx swab down decks in the morning before she went to teach the young idea how to shoot.
There is no lock at the head of the Celilo Canal, but a gate is maintained for the purpose of regulating flow and keeping out drift. Sides, silhouetted against the early morning clouds, worked the gates and let me through into the narrow, concrete-walled canal, down which I pulled with the thunder of the falls on one side and on the other the roar of a passing freight. The earth-shaking rumbles died down presently, and beyond the bend below the railway bridge I found myself rowing quietly through the shadow of the great wall of red-black cliffs that dominate the Dalles from the south.