Frontier and pioneer life -- Oregon; Frontier and pioneer life -- Washington (State)
the incidents of the day, and took an inventory of my rather limited
wardrobe. Be not alarmed, gentle reader; I am not about to tell you what
my attire was on that interesting occasion; suffice it to say that it
was becoming to an American sovereign.
At the appointed time I was at the agent's camp. Two horses saddled,
with ropes around their lower jaw for bridles, were in readiness. I
approached the one allotted to me, but as I neared it, it snorted and
shied. I inquired if it was gentle. "Perfectly so," was the emphatic
answer. An Indian held him, however, as I volted into the saddle. He let
go, and we bounded away at a furious speed. At the distance of two miles
or more I found him willing to yield to the pressure on his jaw and to
slacken his headlong pace. We arrived at the Indian village about 10 a. m.
It was stationed on the margin of the river in a beautiful grove of
timber. It consisted of a dozen or more conical shaped tents. We rode up
to the front of the principal one, dismounted, and hitched our horses by
dropping the trail rope to the ground. The chief came to meet us, and
his reception of the agent seemed to be very cordial. I was introduced
as his friend, and we shook hands and said "Klahowa" to each other. We
entered the tent. There was no furniture, so we were seated on a roll of
bed-clothing next to the wall. An animated conversation was kept up
between the chief and the agent. I did not understand the Indian
dialect, nor could I then speak the classic jargon; hence I had plenty
of time and opportunity for observation. My eyes rolled around the
somewhat contracted royal mansion. I saw there a dumpy female of middle
age, with a heavy but knotted and uncombed head of hair silently engaged
in ornamenting a new pair of moccasins with steel and glass beads. This
could not be the princess?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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