At the provincial jail I found a drunken Scotchman in charge. He was assisted by two half-breed Indian boys serving six months each. One of them cooked for the jailer and any prisoners that came in; the other scrubbed the jail. Both of them watched me faithfully and fed me regularly when the jailer was drunk. I was locked in a cell and never got out except for a bath once a week. The Indian boys slept on the floor in front of my cell by a big stove that was always hot and kept the jail warm. There was not a fixture in the cell but a bucket. I had plenty of blankets and slept on the floor. My clothes were taken and I was dressed in a pair of white duck pants and a hickory shirt. They left me my shoes and hat. I was never so bare and helpless before or since. Not a smoke, nor a paper, book, nor magazine was allowed in the jail. When I asked the Scotchman for something to read, he got me a Bible, which I read and re-read with much interest but no profit. I was pestered daily for weeks by the Crown prosecutor to return the balance of the money taken from the hotel safe, eight hundred dollars. He offered me a short jail sentence if I would give it up, but I mistrusted him and decided to let some car cleaner find it rather than admit anything and get myself in deeper. I gave my case a good thinking over and concluded there was no way out. Judge Powers, J. Hamilton Lewis, and Tom Patterson of Colorado, all rolled into one, couldn’t have acquitted me. All day, every day, I read my Bible and prayed that the conductor might fall under his train before the day of my trial. A priest visited the jail one day and gave me a pamphlet on which he had printed the Chinook language. In answer to my question he told me it contained about three hundred words—nouns, verbs, and adjectives. It was created by the Hudson Bay traders, years before, and taught to all the Northwest Indians to simplify trading with the different tribes. I soon mastered Chinook, practicing on the two “breed” boys and any Indians that happened into the jail. I had given up hope of escape. I was bare-handed. Even the tin spoon I ate my stew with was taken away when the meal was finished. The jailer disliked me from the first. He would come into the jail corridor roaring drunk at night, rout out the two “breeds,” and have them unlock my cell and search “the damned Yank,” while he stood away brandishing a big gun. They never found anything; there was nothing there. One day he came in with a scared-looking China boy about twenty years old. “Yank, here’s a cellmate for you.” He locked the Chinese in, thinking he was punishing me. The China boy later proved the jailer’s undoing and my deliverance. He knew some Chinook, but not one word of English. I learned from the Indian trusty that he was held for trial, charged with stealing a considerable sum of money from his employer, and that his case was about as hopeless as mine.