64 SJ Wv' TIXG A D I 'ENTURES 



a grand feast, and that sonic of the braves were going 1 out 

 hunting 1 , while others were bound on a fishing expedition. 

 We asked permission to join the Nimrods, and it was readily 

 granted by the simple word Nn-u'itka yes for the red men 

 are sparing of words, except when they are extolling their 

 own deeds. 



The hunting party, attired in all sorts of garments, from 

 blankets and buckskins to the tattered remnants of a white 

 man's clothes, or a simple shirt and a piece of cloth tied round 

 the legs, looked more like scarecrows than anything else at a 

 distance. Their head covering aided this appearance, for 

 while some were bareheaded, others wore old felt hats, skin 

 caps, or the small painted baskets made of cedar roots or 

 coarse grass, and three or four were decorated with " plug " 

 hats that were shattered so much as to scarcely resemble the 

 originals in texture or shape. They were accompanied by as 

 motley a throng of dogs as ever was seen, even in an Indian 

 village, some being large, powerful brutes, which showed in- 

 dications of being descended from a more civilized stock 

 than their kindred, while others were small, fox-like curs that 

 looked as if they were degenerate coyotes. "When everything 

 was ready, we marched about seven or eight miles from camp 

 in a body, and then separated, each man taking his own course. 

 My companion and myself kept together, and took a position 

 in the centre of the line, in hopes that we should have a 

 chance shot at anything that fled from the flanks. The dogs 

 were set to work the moment we parted, but we listened in 

 vain for their opening chorus, and this induced us to try still 

 hunting, and to use our eyes instead of our ears. Moving 

 onward cautiously through the dense and towering forest of 

 firs, we often found it hard work to force our way through 

 the matted undergrowth that grew in tropical luxuriance, or 

 the masses of tall ferns, that towered above our heads in 

 many places, and were so thick that we could not sec five feet 

 ahead of us. While groping through one of these forests of 

 fern a fine doe started up so close to us that I could almost 

 have touched her with my gun, and before she could get away 

 I planted a load of lead in her head. That was the first 



