IN THE FAR WEST. 73 



between Southern 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 

 the heads and hides of the animals slain by us during the day, 

 and to suggest that we could have all the antlers we wished if 

 they were of any use to us. His offer was accepted with 

 thanks, and by nightfall the door of our tent was surrounded 

 by piles of skins and the heads of bears and antlers of deer. 



The animals, bereft of their outer covering, were put into 

 pots and boiled, but some, and especially the young bears, 

 were placed in pits in which fires had been burning all 

 day, and were covered with red-hot stones and earth and 

 grass, so that none of the heat should escape. While the 

 large game was being prepared for the feast in pits and pots, 

 the feathered game was being cooked before the blazing wood 

 fires by the pquaws, and the fish fizzled and steamed amid 

 heaps of hot ashes. Every feminine member of the encamp- 

 ment seemed to be busy in cooking for the great occasion, 

 and while some baked unleavened cakes of flour or camas 

 before the fire, others attended to the cooking of the 

 wapato or wild potato, and the boiling of certain herbs, which 

 might be called greens in the general sense of the term, though 

 to be literal they ought to be called thin grasses. When the 

 grand dinner was ready, all hands "set to," as they say in 

 Scotland, and were soon devouring the dainties with all the 

 vigour that a keen appetite and a capacious maw could impart. 

 Scarcely a word was spoken by old or young during the meal, 

 they being too busily engaged in filling the stomach to devote 

 any time to the pleasures of conversation. No person used a, 

 knife or fork, and plates were exceedingly scarce, for I only 

 saw two among the entire lot, and these were used by the chiefs. 



We roamed about among the various clusters, yet no 

 person asked us to join in the festival, and we received no 

 more attention than wandering spectres. We did not care for 

 this, however, as we did not wish to accept their hospitality, 

 our taste being too dainty to enjoy the gross food which they 



