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Squaws sat in front of their wigwams sewing mats, carefully sorting the rushes, putting big ends with little ends, piercing each with a bodkin, and sewing them all together with a long bone needle threaded with buckskin or sinew. Others were weaving that water-tight wickerwork which was, perhaps, the highest art to which the Oregon Indians ever attained.
Down one range and up another they scrambled and at last they came upon the village of the head-hunters. It lay in a valley in an open space where the forest trees had been cleared away. It consisted of some half-dozen houses or huts made of bamboo or wickerwork, and the place seemed literally swarming with women and children and noisy yelping dogs.
Ten yards from the shed under which I slept, there was a pigsty, surrounded by a sort of tiny stockade a fathom high, make of split cane, wove into wickerwork between upright rails sunk into the ground; and by the clear moonlight I could, as I lay in my hammock, see an animal larger than an English bulldog, but with the stealthy pace of the cat, crawl on in a crouching attitude until within ten feet of the sty, when it stopped, looked round, and then drew itself back, and made a scrambling jump against the cane defence, hooking on to the top of it by its fore paws. the claws of its hind feet scratching and rasping against the dry cane splits, until it had gathered its legs into a bunch, like the aforesaid puss, on the top of the enclosure; from which elevation the creature seemed to be reconnoitring the unclean beasts within.
At the head of it marched the grey-haired old chief, followed by a number of screaming women, who in their excitement, or perhaps as a sign of mourning, had omitted to make their toilette, and by four men, who carried something horrid on a wickerwork door. Soon we learned what had happened.
The wickerwork horse Bayard was left to itself out in the square, and the wind whisked the water soaked draperies over its head, disclosing piteously all of its poor framework.
But there was soon plenty more to discuss than the strange appearance of the town, which in reality was little more than a big village with here and there one, or two houses of some pretension scattered about. For the rest, it consisted of the wickerwork huts of the natives. Back of the town were dense forests and beyond these again a long blue line of hills.
It was rather tough and sinewy; but under our circumstances we were very glad to get it. The only question was how it could be preserved. The skipper suggested that we should try to smoke our meat. The operation at first seemed impossible; but under his directions a large wickerwork basket was formed, which was thickly covered over with palm-leaves.
There were wickerwork graneries standing here and there, while around the inner edge of the great entrance hall were little mud and stick woven houses five feet high, which gave the effect of a small village street. From the front of the stage back to the row of little houses was a distance of about one hundred feet.
Marcus himself aided the convalescent to dress; then having seated him in a great chair of rude wickerwork, used only on occasions such as this, left him to bask in a beam of sunshine. Before long, his meal was brought him, and with it a book, bound in polished wood and metal, which he found to be a Psalter.
The runner fixes his moccasins, puts some food in a sack and water in a little wickerwork jug, straps them on his back, and starts at a good round pace. We have concluded to go down the canyon, hoping to meet the Shi'vwits on our return. Soon we are ready to start, leaving the camp and pack animals in charge of the two Indians who came with us.
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