It was six weeks before he had reached Salish House, where he hoped to find Finan McDonald. But neither McDonald nor Jaco Finlay was at the post, and, as they had left no letter to indicate their whereabouts, Thompson prepared to descend Clark's Fork by himself. The river presented an appearance vastly different from that of the autumn of 1809, when he had passed down it before. The spring floods were now at their height, and the water was rising at the rate of two feet each day, inundating the meadows to the foot of the hills, and dashing along with such violence that every island became a water-fall, with a strong eddy at the lower end. Down this raging torrent they paddled, keeping in midstream, and thankful as they passed each danger spot in safety. The antelopes had retired to the hills, and they lived on the meat of horses which they traded from the Indians. On the 8th of June they arrived at the point where the river entered the Box cañon and became utterly unnavigable. There Thompson found a small camp of Kullyspell Indians, who informed him that Finan McDonald was now at a post which he had built on the banks of the Spokane river further south. Thompson engaged two of these Indians to inform McDonald of his presence; while he himself waited until the latter should join him with horses to carry his goods overland to the new post. Four days later McDonald, with thirteen horses, arrived; and Thompson with all his possessions was transported overland to Spokane House, about ten miles northwest of the present city of Spokane. The Spokane river, like Clark's Fork, was a tributary of the Columbia, and, like it, unnavigable toward the mouth. Thompson therefore left a small assortment of goods with McDonald, and proceeded northwest along a well-beaten Indian trail to a point on the Columbia, just below Ilthkoyape or Kettle Falls. Here the stream dropped several feet in two magnificent cataracts, the roar of which could be heard for many miles around. Just below the falls was an Indian village, the first of its kind that Thompson had seen. It was composed of a number of huts, each from thirty to sixty feet in length, roughly built of large cedar logs which had drifted down the river, and roofed with mats of woven fibre stout enough to withstand the rain. The Indians who dwelt here subsisted mainly on fish. Each spring, as the spawning season drew near, they propitiated the manito of the salmon with elaborate dances and ceremonies. Thus purified, they took their stand just beneath the falls and speared or netted the fish, which they smoked in quantities sufficient to last them through the year.