Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/128



1After a few days more Indian Jim and Indian Joe and their associates would be produced as the culprits. In nearly every case the offenders would surrender themselves to justice when the pressure on their people became sufficiently hard, but if not they were brought in by force.

Indians acted very much as children do, and one of their peculiarities was that a criminal seemed unable to keep silent regarding his crime, and however disastrous the consequences might be to himself, was compelled to confess and give himself up.

As one by one the Hudson's Bay Company gave up its posts the men who were foot loose returned to English soil, but many were not so free. Dr. McLoughlin and James Birnie, happy in their married life, were nevertheless not in a position to return home, and were compelled