THE BLACK BEAR. 95 



portion around sufficiently to enable him to get to wading- 

 ground, and then to the shore. On reaching the opposite 

 side lie heard the dogs giving tongue some distance below 

 him, and hurried in their direction, but, before he could 

 overtake them, they had driven their quarry across the 

 stream, and followed it over. Not being able to recross, 

 owing to the want of facility and the depth and strength 

 of the current, he went hunting on his own responsibility, 

 and managed to secure a deer before he joined a party 

 of Indians. He excused himself for leaving me, on the 

 ground that he did not see me fall, and mistook the report 

 of my gun for an effort of mine to bag Bruin ; and seeing 

 him, a splendid male, bounding away, he forgot everything 

 in the desire to tumble him over. The explanation seemed 

 plausible enough, and nothing further was said about his 

 deserting a friend in distress. 



The young brave, known as Mowitch, or the Deer, who 

 had proved a benefactor to me, saw that the animal which 

 gave me the wound was brought in ; and when the prepa- 

 rations for the feast were made, he skinned it, and gave me 

 the hide and head, supposing that I would be glad to keep 

 them as mementos of the occasion. I wondered at this 

 considerateness on the part of an untutored Indian, as I 

 had never before seen one of the race manifest it ; but I 

 learned subsequently that he was well educated, having 

 been brought up in a mission school, and that his teach- 

 er had taught him the lessons of kindness which had made 

 him even then famous in his own tribe for goodness. He 

 could speak English well when he chose to do so ; but it 

 seems that he would not utter a syllable of it if the pale- 

 faces with whom he came in contact spoke Chinook or his 

 own dialect. The cause for this I did not learn ; but my 

 own experience among the red races living between the 

 Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean, and between South- 

 ern Mexico and British America, has taught me to infer 

 that Indians do not care to speak the language of the 

 whites, except when compelled to do so from necessity. 



This brave was even kind enough to give my companion 



