i

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188

What reinforcement he might gain from hope,
If not what resolution from despair.

The manner in which Mr. Cox’s men were made aware
of the nearness of the Indians was simply this: two of
them saw one of their dogs in the wood. On their re-
porting this to the captain, he sent eight men into the
hill with orders to seize and bring to him any Indians

| they could catch. Following the tracks of the dog, the

men went up towards the Indian camp, when suddenly
they were fired upon from amongst the trees. Indians,
to the number of six, presently appeared in the wood, and

| got fired at by our men, though with no particular result

in loss of life or limb to any of them. The Indians had
dodged behind trees, and reloading, they fired a second
time; this time wounding one of the whites. They then
darted off, passing swiftly from tree to tree, and were
soon lost sight of. Klatsassan, the men said, was of the
party. Very probably, we should think. Meanwhile
Mr. Cox, hearing the firing, had come out with twenty
more men. These dispersing in all directions ranged hither
and thither, but did not so much as catch sight of their
nimble foes. Some of them passed quite close beneath
the Indian camp, as the Indians afterwards declared. For
a distance of four miles our men continued the pursuit,
but at length they had to return to camp without a glimmer
of success.
Klatsassan, now back in his eyrie, saw our men wend-
ing homewards ; and not without a sense of exultation,
for his side had certainly had the best of it. In truth he
now felt that the Paleskins were not so dangerous as they
had appeared the day before. They were not half so
quick as the Indians, and their big rifles seemed far less
manageable than the old Hudson Bay muskets his men
were armed with, and their bullets hit very wide of the
the mark. Those big men coming crushing through the
bush, could, he thought, easily be evaded by the agile Red-
skins, with eyes like hawks, and ears like hares, slipping
quietly from tree to tree, and ready ever to fire and to
flee. So for himself and his men the chief now felt con-
fident there was no ground for anxiety: and thanks to
the trivial success of this first encounter, his apprehen-
sions of the previous day gave way to hope and confidence.
At the same time, when he thought of his wives and
family—he had two wives and six children—and of the
other women and children of the camp—he did confess to
himself that the affair had been too close to be altogether
pleasant, He was devoted to his family, as indeed Indians
invariably are, and knowing nothing of the whites, he could
not anticipate what treatment they would receive at the
hands of his enemies. (He need not have been apprehen-
sive on that score, for the captain of the expedition had
now absolute control over his men, and was the most
chivalrous and kind-hearted of mortals.) In any case to let
such hostages fall into their enemy’s hand, would have
been very suicidal policy—and Klatsassan was wise in
resolving as he did. He determined to abandon his
camp, and move to a remote spot where the whites could
never find them. Accordingly, very early next day they
struck their tents, and prepared to depart. Having rolled

up the tents, together with their skins and blankets, |

having also packed up what rude utensils they possessed,
the provisions they had plundered at Manning’s, and
their own salmon and berries, to those of the squaws who
had no babies to carry they assigned to each her “ pack.”
These bundles were fixed by a strap to the forehead of

KLATSASSAN.

the bearer, and in the same way the cradled infants were
carried by their mothers. The men, preux chevalliers,
for the most part bore no other burden than their muskets
and their hunting-knives. The chief, however, sallied
forth with a child perched on each shoulder. And so
they defiled in the grey of dawn from their hill-camp, and |
passing noiselessly through the wood, went on their way,
journeying towards the setting sun.

Klatsassan did not, however, accompany his people to
their new and distant quarters. When they were fairly
out of danger, he left them to pursue the rest of the
journey by themselves, and returned with a few followers
to the neighbourhood of his old camp, to keep watch on
the King George men. Late in the afternoon of the day
of their flight, he and his comrades appeared on a hill
within sight of the whites, fired a volley of defiance, and
then vanished into the wood. Our men wished to give
chase, but it was thought better not. Their leader, being
in absolute ignorance of the number of the enemy,
imagined this a device to lure our men into the wood,
where they might be surrounded and shot from behind
trees, without having a chance to return the fire. He
deemed it, accordingly, more prudent to abstain for the
time from active hostilities until the arrival of Maclaine
with more intelligence of the Indians and possibly with
the much-needed guides.

The party were detained at Puntzeen from one cause
and another far longer than they anticipated. Indeed,
they do not appear to have struck their tents and
moved on before the 7th of July. For men of energy it
was no small trial to remain inactive so long. A few,
indeed, little heeded what they did or did not do, so long
as they had food and good wages and light work. But
the majority chafed at the delay. Not that they were
altogether without occupation or amusement. On the
contrary, scouting parties were sent out every day to
scour the country round, always returning, however,
without having seen or heard any Indians. Wherever
they saw signs of Indian industry, they destroyed them,
with a view to forcing the Indians to surrender. Thus
they destroyed their fishing-apparatus on the lakes and
rivers, and likewise whatever cdehes of provisions they
fell in with. At other times, when not engaged on those
excursions, the men found plenty of sport in the streams
and woods; those teemed with the loveliest trout, and
these abounded in blue grouse, and to men whose rations
were beans and bacon and flour, fish and game were no
contemptible addition to the mess. In those fine summer
evenings when the sun went down, they would sit round
the log fire (for even in warm weather there is a sharp-
ness about the air in that country at night which makes
a fire pleasant) and smoke and entertain each other with
yarns out of their previous not uneventful histories; the
meanwhile sentries posted on the margin of the wood
were on the look-out to guard against surprise.

Their conversation on such occasions might not all be
edifying, but a good deal of it was amusing ; whilst
much of it might consist in Buncombe gas and self.
glorification, one trying to cap the other's Zast, and make
himself out the greater hero. One or two of their yarns
may, perhaps, not unworthily be chronicled as amongst
the curiosities of Colonial life. The history of the name
of Lowhee Creek, one of the richest of the Cariboo gold-
streams, may be ranked as such.

(To be continued.)