CHAPTER XVI.

Before going to bed, Seymour cautioned me through his interpreter, the faithful John, against getting out too early in the morning. He said the goats did not commence to move around until nine or ten o'clock, and if we started out to hunt before that time we were liable to pass them asleep in their beds.

But I read the hypocrite's meaning between his words; he is a lazy loafer and loves to lie and snooze in the morning. It was his own comfort, more than our success in hunting, that he was concerned about. Goats, as well as all other species of large game, are on foot at daylight, whether they have been out all night or not, and from that time until an hour after sunrise, and again just before dark in the evening, are the most favorable times to hunt. The game is intent on feeding at these times and is not so wary as at other times. I told Seymour we would get up at four o'clock, get breakfast, and be ready to move at daylight. And so we did.

The night had been clear and cold; ice had formed around the margin of the lake, and a hoar frost a quarter of an inch deep covered the ground, the logs, and rocks that were not sheltered by trees. Ski-ik-kul or Willey's Lake, as it is termed by the whites, is a beautiful little mountain tarn about a quarter of a mile wide and four miles long. It is of glassy transparency, of great depth, and abounds in mountain trout, salmon, and salmon trout. It is walled in by abrupt, rocky-faced mountains that rise many hundreds of feet from the water's edge, and on which a scanty growth of laurel, currant bushes, and moss furnish food for the goats. Stunted cedars, balsams, spruces, and pines also grow from small fissures in the rocks that afford sufficient earth to cover their roots.

The craft on which we were to navigate this lake was an interesting specimen of Indian nautical architecture. It was a raft Seymour had made on a former visit. The stringers were two large, dry, cedar logs, one about sixteen feet long, the other about twenty; these were held together by four poles, or cross-ties, pinned to the logs, and a floor composed of cedar clapboards was laid over all. Pins of hard, dry birch, driven into the logs and tied together at the tops, formed rowlocks, and the craft was provided with four large paddles, or oars, hewed out with an ax. In fact, that was the only tool used in building the raft. The pins had been sharpened to a flat point and driven firmly into sockets made by striking the ax deeply into the log, and instead of ropes, cedar withes were used for lashing. These had been roasted in the fire until tough and flexible, and when thus treated they formed a good substitute for the white sailor's marline or the cow-boy's picket rope.

We boarded this lubberly old hulk and pulled out up the north shore of the lake just as the morning sun gave the first golden tints to the mountain tops. Our progress was slow despite our united strength applied to the oars, but it gave us more time to scan the mountain sides for game. I did not find it so plentiful as I had been promised, for I had been told by the Indians that we should see a dozen goats in the first hour, but we had been out more than that length of time before we saw any. Finally, however, after we had gone a mile or more up the lake shore, I saw a large buck goat browsing among the crags about four hundred feet above us. He had not seen us, and dropping the oar I caught up my rifle. The men backed water, and as the raft came to a standstill, I sent a bullet into him. He sprang forward, lost his footing, came bounding and crashing to the foot of the mountain, and stopped, stone dead, in the brush at the water's edge not more than twenty feet from the raft. We pushed ashore and took him on board, when I found, to my disappointment, that both horns had been broken off in the fall, so that his head was worthless for mounting.

We cruised clear around the lake that day and could not find another goat. In the afternoon it clouded up and set in to rain heavily again in the canyon, while snow fell on the mountains a few hundred feet above us. The next morning I went up a narrow canyon to the north, and ascending a high peak hunted until nearly noon, when I found two more goats, a female and her kid (nearly full grown), both of which I killed, and taking the skins and one ham of the kid, I returned to camp. It continued to rain at frequent intervals, which robbed camp life and hunting of much of their charm, so I decided to start for home the following morning. In the afternoon I rigged a hook and line, cut an alder pole, and caught five fine trout, the largest seventeen and a half inches long. Seymour speared three more salmon and roasted one of them, so that we had another feast of fish that night. We also roasted a leg of goat for use on our way home, and spent the evening cleaning and drying the three skins as best we could by the camp-fire, to lighten their weight as much as possible.

Meanwhile, I questioned John at considerable length regarding the nature of his language, but could get little information, as he seemed unable to convey his ideas on the subject in our tongue. The language of the Skowlitz tribe, to which he and Seymour belong, is a strange medley of gutturals, aspirates, coughs, sneezes, throat scrapings, and a few words. I said:

"Your language don't seem to have as many words as ours."

"No; English too much. Make awful tired learn him."

"Where did you learn it?"

"O, I work in pack train for Hudson Bay one year, and work on boat one year."

"Where did the boat run?"

"She run nort from Victoria," he said.

"Where to, Alaska?"

"O, I dunno."

"How far north?"

"O, I dunno. Take seven day. We go to de mout of de river."

"What river? What was the name of the town?"

"O, I dunno know what you call 'em."

And thus I learned, by continued questioning, that he did not know or remember the English names of the places he had visited, but that they were probably in Alaska. He always appealed to Seymour to reply to any of my questions that he could not himself answer, and a question or remark that in our tongue had taken a dozen words to express he would repeat in a cough, a throat-clearing sound, and a grunt or two. Seymour's answer would be returned in a half sneeze, a lisp, a suppressed whistle, a slight groan, and an upturning of the eye. Then John would look thoughtful while framing the answer into his pigin English, and it would come back, for instance, something like this:

"Seymo say he tink we ketch plenty sheep up dat big mountain, on de top." Or, "He say he tink maybe we get plenty grouse down de creek. To-morrow we don't need carry meat," etc. John seemed to regard Seymour as a perfect walking cyclopedia of knowledge, and, in fact, he was well informed on woodcraft, the habits of birds and animals, Indian lore, and other matters pertaining to the country in which he lived, but outside of these limits he knew much less than John.

I was disgusted with his pretended inability to speak or understand English, for on one of my former visits to the village I had heard him speak it, and he did it much better than John could. Beside, Pean had told me that Seymour had attended school at the mission on the Frazer river, and could even read and write, but now that he had an interpreter he considered it smart, just as a great many Indians do, to affect an utter ignorance of our language. I asked him why he did not talk; told him I knew he could talk, and reminded him that I had heard him speak good English; that I knew he had been to school, etc. He simply shook his head and grunted. Then I told him he was a boiled-down fool to act thus, and that if he really wanted to appear smarter even than his fellows, the best way to do it was to make use of the education he had whenever he could make himself more useful and agreeable by so doing. I saw by the way he changed countenance that he understood every word I said, though he still remained obstinate. On several occasions, however, I suddenly fired some short, sharp question at him when he was not expecting it, and before stopping to think he would answer in good English.