Pioneering in Kootenay. 259 



tribe, who periodically visited the Flatbows, on gambling bent.* 

 As a rule, the far more simple minded Kootenais fell easy 

 victims of their rascally opponents' numerous ruses. 



The nearest Kootenai camp was many miles off, but by some 

 mysterious means the news of Kiskayooka's fortune spread so 

 quickly that in two hours three unspeakably sorry looking steeds 

 were standing outside old Dave's shack. Only one had a saddle on, 

 while the other two were disfigured by great running sores on their 

 backs and cruelly scored flanks, which made them pitiable looking 

 objects. Upon these three depressing specimens of man's best 

 friend Dave and four of his tillicums proceeded to ride off. Dave 

 had the horse with the saddle, while on the other two wincing 

 beasts blankets were strapped, two bucks, absolutely naked but for 

 their breechclouts, bestriding each of the undersized, wretchedly 

 thin steeds. Entirely disregarding their horses' condition, the 

 party proposed to ride through to Sandpoint, for the Indian is 

 quite void of all mercy in regard to animals, and when he wants 

 to get to any place he rides his poor brute until it drops. 

 Business took me away for three or four days, and when I returned 

 Old Dave was just coming back in a canoe minus the ninety 

 dollars and the three horses, but plus a formidable K at zen jammer. 

 The horses and the dollars had been gambled away or expended 

 upon a grand debauch in Sandpoint, where, though it was a criminal 

 offence to supply Indians w r ith whiskey, drunken natives could be 

 seen staggering through the streets almost any day. Occasionally 

 a white man's life paid the penalty, for whiskey makes the Indian 

 a dangerous customer, but the profits of the business were then, and 

 are still, too great not to attract the scum of the whites. In a law- 

 less country as Idaho then was, the trade was carried on with 

 impunity and quite openly. 



* This vice is deeply ingrained in all the Indians of this region, the 

 favourite game of chance being a sort of tippets, which they play for days and 

 nights at a stretch, the nature of the stakes being as heterogeneous as the game 

 itself is simple. A " cleaned out " Indian, who has gambled away everything 

 he possessed, including the gaudy shirt on his back or his single blanket, was 

 one of the commonest sights. 



S 2 



