AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. S3 



which is five miles down the river and that there 

 were several good goat hunters there whom I could 

 get. I accepted their offer of transportation, stepped 

 into the canoe, and we pulled out. As we entered 

 the shoal water in the river I asked for a pole, and 

 impelled by it and the three paddles we sped down 

 the stream at a rapid rate. 



There was a cold, disagreeable rain falling and a 

 chilly north wind blowing. This storm had brought 

 clouds of ducks into the river, among them several 

 flocks of canvas backs. The Indians, who were using 

 smoorh-bore muskets, killed several of these tooth- 

 some fowls. One flock rose ahead of us and started 

 directly down the river, but by some kind of native 

 intuition the Indians seemed to know that they would 

 come back up the opposite shore. They dropped 

 their guns, caught up the paddles and plied them 

 with such force that every stroke fairly lifted the 

 light cedar canoe out of the water, and we shot across 

 the river with the speed of a deer. Sure enough, 

 after flying a hundred yards down stream the 

 ducks turned and, hugging the shore, undertook to 

 pass up the river on the other side, but we cut them 

 off, so that they had to pass over our heads. At 

 this juncture the two muskets carried by the two 

 young men cracked and three canvas backs dropped, 

 limp and lifeless, into the water within a few feet 

 of us. 



We arrived at the hut occupied by -this family at 

 noon. It stands on the bank of the river, half a mile 

 above the village of Chehalis, and as we pulled up, 

 two old and two young squaws and nine small Indi- 

 ans, some of them mere papooses in arms (but not 



