Nov. 27, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
849 
that my wife would fare much better if she 
would ride his horse. We had by this time 
grown to realize that the Indian was to be 
trusted. He seemed so desirous of constituting 
himself her especial cavalier that, woman-like, 
she trusted him. With his assistance she 
mounted the pony and he handed up the 
youngster. I defy the most polished gentleman 
to have performed the office with more grace 
than did this savage Chesterfield. This was 
perhaps the first time in his life that he had 
ever seen a woman mount a horse sidewise, yet 
he never gave one sign to indicate that the 
manner of riding was at all different from that 
to which he had been accustomed. 
The road was rough. Even to my unso¬ 
phisticated eye that was evident. I simply held 
on and let the horses guide themselves. Had 
T, in my ignorance, attempted to guide them, 
we should have had the whole outfit rolling 
down over the hillside into the river. The 
Indian led his horse, upon which my wife sat, 
looking anything but dignified and comfortable. 
For miles of rocks and spring brooks we 
crawled down that hill, until at length we 
reached the narrow strip of level land that 
borders the river. 
It is impossible to picture the change in our 
surroundings. In a few miles we passed from 
mid-winter into almost mid-summer. The 
flowers were all in bloom, the orchard trees in 
full leaf, grass covered the ground. The In¬ 
dians were busy putting in their little crops, 
plowing the ground with rude old-fashioned 
plows furnished them by the Government, 
driving their little horses that seemed too 
small for such heavy work. The birds were 
filling the air with melody, and the little brooks 
were tumbling down, the hillsides, making music 
upon the smooth white quartz pebbles like the 
keys of some woodland organ. It is no wonder 
the Indians call this country by a name that 
means a land of rippling water. We passed be¬ 
tween rows of apple trees that had the appear¬ 
ance of being very old, we traversed lanes of 
rude fences inclosing Indian fields, arriving at 
last at the ferry of the Koos-koos-kia, a rude 
and primitive craft that threatened to swamp 
with every passenger, but never did so. 
It seemed that every member of the Sahaptin 
family was present at the ferry landing to meet 
us. By some mysterious Indian means our 
coming had been heralded several days before, 
and they knew just when we were to arrive. It 
•vas a picturesque group assembled there. They 
>\’ere to be our companions for several years 
md we theirs. They showed the better judg¬ 
ment in getting acquainted with us at the start. 
There was nothing offensive in their curiosity, 
out it was the most refreshing and frank of any- 
hing I had ever seen. My wife’s garments 
:ame in for a large share of their attention, 
ivery article of her attire was handled and in¬ 
jected by the Indian women, who kept up a 
unning fire of comment which we were unable 
o interpret, but was in all probability very 
nuch the same that the opinions of her more 
ivilized sisters would have been. It was 
ather amusing, however, that she evidently 
stablished a sort of fashion among them, for 
i a very short time one could see the Indian 
'omen dressed in garments that were palpable, 
rather crude, imitations of my wife’s raiment. 
The baby was the prize toy. He was passed 
from one to another until he had gone the 
rounds. Strange to say, the little rascal rather 
liked it, and only put in his protest when I in¬ 
sisted upon returning him to the wagon. The 
ferry had been hailed and was now on our side 
of the river. Closing my eyes and trusting to 
Providence, I headed the horses down the steep 
bank and upon the crazy boat. It careened, 
toppled a bit, sank in the water and became 
steady once more. The Indian ferryman pushed 
off, and almost before I had time to feel 
alarmed, had landed us safely on the opposite 
shore. 
The dispatch had said there was a small 
house that we were entitled to use, and across 
the turbulent current of the river we had caught 
sight of the roof of the same. It stood in a 
beautiful grove of cottonwoods back from the 
river shore, and from where we were, looked 
the ideal home indeed. After landing, we 
pulled the wagon up in front of our future home 
and took one look around. I was at first at a 
loss whether to laugh or cry. Not so with my 
wife; like Rachel of old, she lifted up her voice 
and wept. Poor little woman, she had borne 
up under all the hardships of the journey with¬ 
out a murmur or a tear, but this last blow was 
too much, overwrought nature must have an 
outlet. If she had been a man, the steam might 
have escaped in profanity, but being only a 
woman, all she could do was to cry, so she 
just flopped down on the grass and cried. Was 
this consistent? The Government had given 
her a house all ready to her hand; all she had 
to do was to move in, and here she was weep¬ 
ing about it. 
Now the Government never contemplated 
that as soon as the building was vacated by its 
former tenants the Indians would make use of 
it for a horse stable, but that is what they had 
done. A buckskin cayuse with two pinto colts 
was looking at us contemplatively from one of 
the windows, while a gray horse with both his 
ears and tail cropped off short, giving him a 
very rakish expression, was inspecting us from 
the vantage point of the principal doorway. 
The doors and windows, alas! were long since 
gone, for youthful savage is the same the world 
over, whether his skin be white or brown, or 
whether he lives in a Fifth avenue mansion or 
in a tepee on the Sahaptin Reservation. What 
well-developed boy can resist the temptation to 
hurl a stone through a window of an empty 
house? He would not be the boy for me if he 
could. 
The picket fence was a ruin, the flower beds 
that had been some one’s pride were trampled 
out of all recognition. Our Indian coadjutor, 
however, had no time to bewail the minor in¬ 
conveniences. What were our petty troubles 
to him who had lived all his life under just such 
conditions. He was busy hustling our belong¬ 
ings into the house when I made him under¬ 
stand by dint of a small supply of Chinook and 
a large supply of gesticulation—the latter much 
better understood than the former—that it 
would be impossible for us to inhabit that 
house until it had been renovated somewhat. 
He hurried away and in a short time returned 
with several more natives and a large tepee, 
which they soon erected in the yard; into this 
we removed our belongings and began life upon 
the reservation as the Indians themselves live 
it. At first it was a little smoky, but we soon 
grew accustomed to that and fared very well. 
Judging from the laughter our every move¬ 
ment created, the savages found in us a 
never-failing source of amusement. To them 
we must have been “green” indeed. They were 
on hand in the morning to watch our rising; 
they were there at night to witness our retir¬ 
ing. They saw what we cooked and how we 
did it, what we wore and how it was made. 
They were curious and inquisitive, but never 
intimate or offensive. If one saw where he 
could help, he was always ready to do so; in 
fact, they would hunt up little kindnesses to do 
for us. Our boy was a constant delight to 
them, and it soon got so that we hardly knew 
where he was half the time. He almost lived 
with them; the women especially were in love 
with him. A hundred times a day I would hear 
the words “hoi-hoi koots-koots petin,” and I 
wondered what it meant. I afterward learned. 
They had never seen a baby so white, and they 
called him the “dear little snow white boy.” 
They still have no other name for him, though 
he stands over six feet and is almost as brown 
as one of themselves. 
After days of hard labor we rendered the 
house habitable, and moved into it. Our house¬ 
keeping was of the most primitive kind; in fact, 
we were but little better equipped than the 
Indians themselves. After getting settled down, 
we were at liberty to look about and take stock 
of our environment. The Indian settlement 
lay on both sides of the Koos-koos-kia and upon 
the V-shaped strip of land made by the junc¬ 
tion of the Kooskia and the Koos-koos-kia. 
Back from the shore stood the little Presby¬ 
terian chapel where such of the red men as had 
embraced Christianity met every Sabbath to 
worship God and listen to the expounding of 
His Word by one of themselves. Up the main 
river a mile stood the store of the Government 
trader, who, with his family, were the only 
white people on the river besides ourselves. 
It has been the popular belief for ages that 
the Indian exists in an atmosphere of perpetual 
gloom, and that his face is never broken by a 
smile. I fear the popular mind has received 
its impression of Indians from the representa¬ 
tion of the race seductively holding out a 
handful of stogies in front of a cigar store. 
The cigar store Indian, too, is just about as 
much like the actual thing as many of the 
pictures painted by would-be Indian authorities 
who write books about them. The average In¬ 
dian is a joker of the most pronounced type, 
and no man extracts more unalloyed fun from 
life than he. To sit at evening when the air is 
still and listen to the laughter arising from a 
camp of Sahaptins would convince the most 
sceptical that the Indian is anything but a stoic. 
The Indian is a stoic when it comes to enduring 
pain and deprivation, but in the enjoyment of 
life he is quite the reverse. 
As illustrating their fun loving, an incident 
occurred shortly after our arrival. One Sun¬ 
day we attended services in the little chapel. 
It was quite warm and all the windows were 
opened to admit the air. The exercises, which 
had been conducted with great decorum, were 
drawing to a close. The Indian parson was 
upon his knees. About midway of his prayer 
pandemonium broke loose among the thousand 
and odd dogs that had been sleeping in the 
shade of the trees and the shadow of the church. 
