Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/99

 the camp at dusk, where I found only Michel La Framboise, our Chenook interpreter, and an Indian boy, who told me that the savages had been very troublesome ever since our brigade of hunters left him some days before. The former kindly assisted me to pitch my tent, and gave me a little weak spirits and water, with a basin of tea, made from some that he had brought from Fort Vancouver, and which greatly refreshed me. Rain very heavy.

Monday, the 30th.—Last night, about ten o'clock, several Indians were seen round our camp, all armed. Of course, instead of sleeping, we had to watch; we then made a large fire, and leaving the camp, hid ourselves in the grass, at a little distance, to watch their movements. An hour and a half before day, a party of fifteen passed near where we were, crawling among the grass towards our fire. We immediately fired blank shot and scared them away; then returned to the camp and breakfasted on some tea and a little dried salmon, and as I had not had a thread of dry clothes upon me for some days, and the rain still continued, I sat within my tent, with a small fire before the door the whole day.

Tuesday, the 31st.—Heavy showers, accompanied by a Northwest wind, blowing off the ocean, which renders the air excessively cold and raw. Brought in wood this morning for fuel, and branches of Pine and Pteris aquilina (the bracken of my native land) for bedding. At noon an Indian, who had undertaken to guide two of the hunters to a small lake about twenty or thirty miles distant, returned to our camp, wearing one of their coats, and having in his possession some of their hunting implements. All this looks very suspicious, but as we know nothing of his language, and are too few to risk coming to a quarrel, surrounded as we are by foes, we take, at present, no notice, hoping, too, that he may only have robbed and not murdered our poor countrymen. We continue our watch, and