Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/89

83 JOURNAL OF DAVID DOUGLAS. 83 Tuesday, the 17th. Last night sat by the fire till two o'clock, when Mr. McLeod most kindly insisted on giving me his own blanket and buffalo robe to lie down upon, while he took a turn of sitting up, wrapped in a great coat. We all three went out to seek for the wounded doe, and found her with a ball that had pierced both shoulders; still, another shot was necessary to despatch her. McKay having also brought down a fine buck, weighing 190 pounds, we returned to the camp in high spirits, and made a comfortable meal on the excellent venison these animals afforded. 'Our horses did not arrive till four o'clock, and in a very exhausted condition. The luggage which mine carried was almost destroyed by the poor beast's repeated falls ; the tin box containing my notebook bruised quite out of shape, its sides bent together a small case of pre- serving-powder quite spoiled, and my only shirt reduced, by the chafing, to the state of surgeon's lint. I congratu- lated myself exceedingly on not having trusted my papers of plants to the same conveyance, but carried them on my, back. The country towards the upper part of the river appears to be more varied and mountainous, and may, perhaps, afford me the much-wished-for Pine, as it cer- tainly considerably resembles the spot described to me by the Indian in whose smoking-pouch I last year found some of its large scales. If the morning proves fine, and any provision has been killed, I intend to start to-morrow for a few days' excursion in that direction, Baptiste Mc- Kay having given me one of his Indian hunters, a young man about eighteen years of age, as a guide. To what nation he belongs he does not know, as he was brought from the South by a war party when a child, and kept as a slave till McKay took him. He is very fond of this mode of life, and has no desire to return to his Indian relations, and as he speaks a few words of Chenook and understands