Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/256

240 becoming. They had consumed their provisions and were separated from their cattle by a swollen stream and a dense snowstorm. They had a large and fat dog, and hunger suggested his sacrifice. His owner, a strong, healthy youth of eighteen, who had never felt the pangs of hunger before, cried while hacking the dog's throat with a caseknife. The boy was mending the fire, while one of the older men was telling this, and in a spirit of mischief, which is one of the best ingredients of camp life, I asked "John, was the dog's meat good?" The youth turned up his face, yet smeared with the fat, and said solemnly, "Yes, it was good," in a manner that set us all to laughing. They were waiting for an expected boat, and had not long to wait after we left them.

We plied our boats rapidly, though a few times we were windbound and were now on a very slim larder. We also saw signs of scarcity among the Indians, and heard the death wail often and more often intermit the tiresome tom-tom of the gamblers' drum. The fishing villages at The Dalles, Celilo, and the Des Chutes were gathering points for the gamblers, thieves, and desperadoes of the surrounding tribes, and several robberies occurred between John Day and The Dalles. One Indian was brought bound to The Dalles by one of the last parties to arrive. The question was, what to do with him? Most of the men were for shooting him, but Rev. Alvin Waller said, "No; if that was done Indian custom, by his kin or his tribe, would exact a life for a life unless those that shot him made satisfactory payment to his family or tribe, and Indians were more apt than white men to make revenge a race question. This thief," he said, "would be punished more severely by being whipped than in any other way," and Father Waller's reasoning prevailed. The Indian was flogged and turned loose.

A few of Gilliam's train remained for a time at The