Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/201

 given them credit for some articles until the spring, the greater part of them set off to make their winter's hunt, which their recent misfortunes had protracted to a very late period. When the house was finished I got a good canoe built of cedar planks in which I embarked with six men, and taking leave of Farnham, on the 18th of December, descended the Flat-*head river on my return to Spokan. Our progress was slow and full of danger, from the great number of rapids, and the force of the current. The land on each side was high, and the banks in some places so precipitous, that for three nights we could not find room enough to make our beds on shore, and were constrained to sleep in a standing position, rolled up in our cloaks and blankets; leaving the canoe in the water, fastened to poles driven some distance into the ground. On the 25th we arrived at a place were the river forked into four or five small channels, which afterwards united and formed a lake about five miles long, and two broad. We took the centre channel; but it was full of snags, which broke several of the ribs of our canoe, and we were forced to land on a marshy island, full of small willows, and without a bit of dry wood to make a fire.