Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/40



HE children that Lewis and Clark saw I on the lower river were odd-looking creatures. The babies were strapped to boards and looked like miniature mummies of Egyptian times, but the older ones were ceaselessly active. They were little brown fellows with slender legs that upheld and rapidly carried about a protuberant stomach, apparently four sizes too large for the legs below and the head above. It is astonishing how much they looked like the pictures of Brownies in our children's picture-books. Amongst them the rate of mortality was high, and they grew up with the dogs as best they could; were fed, and in a fashion clothed and sheltered, and that was all. As soon 20