Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/240

224 Oregon friends gave us rice and tea and sugar, and things looked generally pleasant as the result of our trust in Providence. To complete our satisfaction a cavalcade of Indian women now came along with horses loaded with camas roots. We purchased some fresh roots to boil with our game; but the squaws knowing better than we how to use camas, brought out some cakes of camas bread they had left over from their lunch. These cakes were eight to ten inches broad and one and a quarter thick, of brown color, and texture like new cheese, but more glutinous, with a sweet and agreeable taste; undoubtedly a very nutritious food. We bought all the women had, fishhooks being our money.

Next morning a very dense fog lay over Grand Ronde? We took the trail, however, and just as we got to where we started into the Blue Mountains the fog lifted and we found a number of Indians, all of whom were men, except one exceedingly handsome girl. She was well dressed in buckskin, highly ornamented, and mounted on a proud and beautiful horse. A fine man, past middle age, was her company—father and daughter they appeared. They took no part in the trading, which indeed seemed more pretense than business. A keen eyed, powerful man would have a quart or two of pease; another as much corn; the next a few potatoes; and over each sample would be five times the bargaining we had with the women the evening before. We took the mountain trail, which was as bad as Mr. Grant's description, and were soon overtaken by two of the Indians, who had followed to trade me a better horse and get the pistol which I had fired in compliment to the Indian girl to boot. They got their bargain, and I got much the worse horse.

We camped that night with the most advanced section of Woodcock's company, in a deep valley in the Blue Mountains. The Cayuse chief, Sticcus, and his