304: MEN 1 HAVE FISHED WITH. 



farmers say. Bill was a strapping, broad-shouldered fel- 

 low, who had been on the West Coast in that early day, 

 perhaps with the "Argonauts" who went to the gold- 

 fields of California in 1849; a rough, swaggering fellow, 

 just the opposite of Old Poppy Knight, whom he seemed 

 to dislike in a superlative degree. 



Mrs. Patterson and Miss Rowena Knight, daughter 

 of O. P. K., were in the family circle. The conversation 

 'had been general, and I had tried to reply to three or 

 four questions at once, when Pop asked: "Are them In- 

 jun girls good lookin'?" 



"See here, Pop/' said Bill, who had been where the 

 evening had been more bibulously observed, "what does 

 an old duffer like you want to talk about Injun girls for? 

 I've been all through Sonora, New Mexico and the whole 

 West Coast, and I never see a squaw that was worth a 

 second look. I want to find out what them Injuns live 

 on up in that cold country, where Fred says there's no 

 game. I've ast that half a dozen times, and you don't 

 give him a chance to answer. Now you let up for a little 

 till we get at this problem of eating." Then to me: 

 "What can they get to eat up there?" 



"Mainly fish," I answered; "they dry it for winter, 

 and eat it without anything except salt, of which they are 

 fond; but where they got salt before the white man came 

 is a question. The Indians on the sea coast got it in 

 their fish and oysters, and those about the interior salt 

 springs had it to trade with other tribes; but when you 

 look at it you will see that the dwellers in some parts 

 must have eaten their meat without it." 



"Bill says he never saw a good-looking squaw," said 

 Pop. "Now there's lots o' half-breeds up there, and are 

 the half-breed girls better looking than the squaws?" 



"Pop," said Bill, "you had better go up there and see 



