Page:The Conquest.djvu/262

 ed. Then the moulds were brought and candles were made of elk tallow, until a heap, shining and white, were ready for the winter evenings.

"We have had trouble enough with those thieving Chinooks," said Captain Lewis. "Without a special permit, they are to be excluded from the fort."

The Indians heard it. Did a knock resound at the gate, "No Chinook!" was the quick accompaniment.

"Who, then?" demanded the sentinel, gun in hand.

"Clatsop," answered Coboway's people entering with roots and cranberries.

Or, "Cathlamets," answered an up-river tribe with rush bags of wapato on their backs. Roots of the edible thistle—white and crisp as a carrot, sweet as sugar, the roasted root of the fern, resembling the dough of wheat, and roots of licorice, varied the monotonous fare.

These supplies were very welcome, but the purchase money, that was the problem.

President Jefferson had given to Captain Lewis an unlimited letter of credit on the United States, but such a letter would not buy from these Indians even a bushel of wapato.

The Cathlamets would trade for fishhooks. The Clatsops preferred beads, knives, or an old file.

No wonder they valued an old file: the finest work of their beautiful canoes was often done with a chisel fashioned from an old file. Lewis and Clark had frequent occasion to admire their skill in managing these little boats, often out-riding the waves in the most tumultuous seas.

Ashore, these canoe-Indians waddled and rolled like tipsy sailors. Afloat, straight and trim as horse-Indians of the prairie, each deft Chinook glided to his seat along the unrocking boats, and striking up the paddlers' "Ho-ha-ho-ha-ho-ha-" went rowing all their lives, until their arms grew long and strong, their legs shrunk short and crooked, and their heads became abnormally intelligent.

Nor were these coast Indians lacking in courage,—they sometimes ventured into the sea in their wonderful canoes, and harpooned the great whale and towed h