[Illustration: “The great big fellow just danced up and down, crying, ‘My children, my children, don’t be like little boys!’” _p. 76_] After we had washed the wounds and dressed some fearful looking gashes, we offered a prayer of thanks to God and got away to rest, too much excited to sleep. Early the next day Tsil-ka-mut and others came to the mission house to thank me for being there that night, for they said: “O missionary, if you hadn’t been there perhaps six or twelve men dead this morning. Then there would be such a savage, angry feeling in all our hearts, which would not leave us for many moons.” “Were you not afraid?” “Did you not get hurt?” my friends have asked me. No, thank God, we were not hurt, and as for fear, we didn’t think of it until it was all over, when we wondered we hadn’t been knocked down. Surely “the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” We had the comfort of seeing Qual-la-kup and some of his friends come into the enjoyment of the blessed light. Qual-la-kup’s brother, the uncle of David Sallosalton, and many others of his clan, became devoted Christians. Alas! for the other poor old chief and his family; some of them did not live out half their days. Poor, proud, jealous Quee-es-ton, the man who once knocked the missionary down and afterwards expressed his sorrow for having done so, was killed in a quarrel with some white men about whiskey. Whiskey was his great enemy, as well as that of his wife, Stah-cel-wet. They would have a supply of fire-water as often as they could get the money. I have more than once stood between them in their quarrelling, taking their whiskey away and getting them sobered up. At the time of my encounter with him, before mentioned, I pointed him to the Saviour of sinners and urged him to prepare to meet his God. He appeared repentant and seemed for a time to reform, but alas! for poor, weak human nature, he fell again. Chief Louis Good and family, of Nanaimo, now attend the services and profess Christianity. We trust they may lead lives of usefulness. He is related to the family of chiefs. As for Tsil-ka-mut, we shall hear of him later. CHAPTER IX. _HOUSES, CLOTHING, CRUEL CUSTOMS._ “Thou, whose Almighty word Chaos and darkness heard, And took their flight, Hear us, we humbly pray, And where the Gospel day Sheds not its glorious ray Let there be light.” --_Marriott._ Reference has been made to the old type of heathen house, built of split cedar boards bound together with poles and withes or ropes made of cedar bark. The roof was formed of slabs of cedar, held down by large stones or by poles extending from one end to the other. Later on the roofs were made of rafters, on which were laid “shakes”--large split shingles--after the manner of the early settlers’ barns.