Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/77

 he employ them, for the "Sahalee Tyee," the Indian god, had struck before him.

After 1800 the smallpox, measles and consumption were always busy, and a death in the Indian village was a common thing. There was no doctor at Cathlamet, and in pitiful dependence upon their superior skill the Indians used to come to James Bimie and William Strong, the only white settlers there, and ask for medicine, which was always given them, although it was no inconsiderable burden to supply it.

But sickness in an Indian lodge was not to be checked by medicines.