Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/357

Rh here is an example. Meek wanted a horse to ride out to the Plains where his family were, and not knowing how else to obtain it, helped himself to one belonging to Dr. White; which presumption greatly incensed the Doctor, and caused him to threaten various punishments, hanging among the rest. But the Indians overhearing him replied,

"Wake nika cumtux—You dare not.—You no put rope round Meek's neck. He tyee (chief)—no hang him."

Upon which the Doctor thought better of it, and having vented his solemn audacity, received smiling audacity with apparent good humor when he came to restore the borrowed horse.

As our friend Meek was sure to be found wherever there was anything novel or exciting transpiring, so he was sure to fall in with visitors of distinguished character, and as ready to answer their questions as they were to ask them. The conversation chanced one day to run upon the changes that had taken place in the country since the earliest settlement by the Americans, and Meek, who felt an honest pride in them, was expatiating at some length, to the ill-concealed amusement of two young officers, who probably saw nothing to admire in the rude improvements of the Oregon pioneers.

"Mr. Meek," said one of them, "if you have been so long in the country and have witnessed such wonderful transformations, doubtless you may have observed equally great ones in nature; in the rivers and mountains, for instance?"

Meek gave a lightning glance at the speaker who had so mistaken his respondent:

"I reckon I have," said he slowly. Then waving his hand gracefully toward the majestic Mt. Hood, towering thousands of feet above the summit of the Cascade range,