SALMON BILLY. 
The Yurok are not as good hunters as the 
Karok and are inclined to be timid in the deep 
forest, but they are bold and skillful water- 
men. They pretend that when they go into 
the mountains, devils, shaped like bears, shoot 
arrows at them, which travel straight until 
they are about to impinge on them when they 
suddenly swerve aside. 
On the other hand, I could not but admire 
the dash and coolness of Salmon Billy, whom 
a bold soldier-boy and myself employed to 
take us down the river in his canoe. When 
we were bowling down the rapids where the 
water curled its green lips as if it would swal- 
low us bodily, and the huge waves now headed 
her, now pooped her, and now took her amid- 
ships, until she was nearly a third full of water, 
Billy stood up in the stern and his eyes glis- 
tened with savage joy while he bowsed away 
hearty, first on this side, then on that, until 
we shot down like an Oxford shell on the 
Thames. He got a little nervous at times, 
which we could always tell by his commenc- 
ing to whistle under his breath; and in the 
roughest rapids he would get to whistling very 
fast, but his stroke was never steadier than 
then. In a pinch like this he would bawl out 
to us to trim the canoe, or to sit still, with an 
imperiousness that amused me. 
I will also relate a little incident, show- 
ing the exceeding cunning of this same Salmon 
Billy. One day I was toiling down the trail 
along the Klamath in an execrable drizzle 
of rain, which, together with the labyrinth 
4 
D3 
Fic. 1.—Weapons of war. 
sketch by A. W. Chase. 
