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/268

 in a long speech; in the course of which he said that King George had sent a ship full of warriors, and loaded with nothing but big guns to take the Americans, and make them all slaves; and that as they (the Americans) were the first white men who settled in their country, and treated the Indians like good relations, they had resolved to defend them from King George's warriors, and were now ready to conceal themselves in the woods close to the wharf, from whence they would be able with their guns and arrows to shoot all the men that should attempt to land from the English boats; while the people in the fort could fire at them with their big guns and rifles. This proposition was uttered with an earnestness of manner that admitted no doubt of its sincerity: two armed boats from the Racoon were approaching; and had the people in the fort felt disposed to accede to the wishes of the Indians, every man in them would have been destroyed by an invisible enemy. Mr. M'Dougall thanked them for their friendly offer; but added that notwithstanding the nations were at war, the people in the boats would not injure him or any of his people, and therefore requested them to throw by their war-shirts and arms, and receive the strangers as their friends. They at