Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/254

 246, T. W. DAVENPORT. lost once in the Cascade Mountains and so befuddled among its mists and clouds, which completely shut out the sun, that I could not determine which end of the Barlow road to take when I came to it. An Indian happened along soon after, and I, being a ' ' Chinooker ' ' as the early Oregonians termed those who had learned to speak the Indian, was soon traveling towards the valley. And to show what acute observers those unschooled children are, I must narrate the colloquy just as it occurred. Looking at me rather fixedly he saw at once, I suppose by the staring expression of my eyes, that I had been suffering from extreme mental anxiety, and ejaculated, "Micah hias quash" (You are very fearful) ; "Micah wake cumtux kah micah illahee (you know not which way is home.) Of course I could not hide from those reading eyes my true condition and "owned the corn" by saying "nowitka" (yes.) He gave me a smile that I was at a loss to interpret, and to this day I do not know whether it was expressive of sympathy with my suffering condition or of languid contempt for a white man, that with his superior attainments should be so barren of brain as to become a crazy wanderer in the woods where every tree and stone should furnish him a clue to his destination. Looking around he asked, "Cuppit icht micah?" (are you alone), to which I answered "Nowitka" (yes.) Pointing to the way he had come he told me that in about one hour's walk I would find a covered wagon and white family camped, with plenty of venison ; inspiring news to me as I had not tasted food in twenty-four hours. Clapping his moccasined heels against his pony's sides he started off, saying in English, "Good-bye, Boston man," and added in Indian, "Cloce nanitch oo-ee-hut" (Look sharp for the road.) There are only a few hundred words of Chinook, but after one has experienced inability to communicate by speech with human beings, he will prize highly even as poor and rudi- mentary language as the Chinook, which was the language of the tribe of that name that inhabited the lower Columbia Valley, and at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, in the years 1804 and 1805, was the most numerous and pow-