Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/242

226 line of the Cascade Range of Mountains appears a forest-clad and impassable wall, out of which arise two immense white cones called, as I subsequently learned, Mount Hood and Mount Adams. Looking down the foot of the mountains we see a line of what appears brushwood, in which the glisten of water can be seen in spots.

For more than two miles we descend, sometimes in a deeply worn horse trail and sometimes in sight of the dim wagon tracks made the previous year. As soon as we reach the brush and tree growth on the bank of the Umatilla River we meet Cayuse Indians. We are invited to stop by a sign and the words "Swap Six" from a young Indian who has about a peck of potatoes in a sack in front of him on horseback. He conveys to us by a sign that he wishes a shirt in exchange for his potatoes. We need the potatoes, as we are utterly without material for supper. After consultation we find one of our party has yet a spare shirt, and the trade is soon effected with mutual satisfaction apparently. The young man goes toward the brush, and out of the thicket came two young squaws, to whom the purchase is shown. One of them holds the garment up to the light and perceives that it has been worn, and she points to its being thinner at the shoulder points. The women, or girls, both begin to laugh at him, and this ends in his coming back to us for a return of his potatoes. But we think he has got his dry goods very cheap, and being hungry easily conclude as it takes two parties to make a trade it takes two to break one. The Indian suddenly rides against the one who has charge of our purchase and throws it to the ground, and begins to gather up his lasso as if to use that. One of our party, keeping his gun in one hand, got to the ground, and putting the little loosely filled sack onto the horn of his saddle vaulted into his seat and turned the muzzle of his gun towards