Kate Mulhall A romance of the Oregon Trail
Ogden, a courageous and trusted Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company,
was the first one out of the canoe. He jumped into the water, waist
deep, and began his pranks in a salt water bath, while the mother
laughingly scolded him for his rashness.
Kate and Pelton were glad of relief from their cramped position in
the canoe, independent of the anxiety of their experience with the
tide-rips. "_Tenas in-e-ti sitcum sum Skookum chuck copet_" (just
after noon the current will quiet), Steicca said; and suggested that
they remain where they were until the tide turned. Kate had learned
enough of the mongrel Chinook jargon to understand what the Indians
said; so she and Pelton readily assented.
A steep bluff prevented exploring the nearby woods, and there were no
trees until near the top of the hill. Steicca at once began
preparations for a brisk fire with the abundant material in sight. A
great mass of driftwood obstructed the shore-line just above their
landing, some half imbedded in the sand and gravel of the beach, and
other debris evidently having been driven beyond the reach of the
highest tide by storms of wind and wave. The dead limbs of these
derelicts supplied excellent fuel to speedily make a roaring fire.
{130}
Kate noticed the Indian gathering and piling small rocks on the fire
while Sally dug a small pit, lined it with loose rock, and built
another fire in preparation for a clambake. As it was near low tide,
the clam beds were exposed and an abundance of the bivalves easily
secured for a bounteous meal. Clams are found on the conveniently
located sloping beaches, and in enormous quantities along the fifteen
hundred miles of the shore-line of Puget Sound waters; so the saying,
"dinner is always ready when the tide is out," was literally true.
Kate forgot the apparition of the head and the whirls of the
tide-rips that had so startled and alarmed her when their attention
was attracted to the picturesque beach, with its many shells and
pebbles of various sizes, shapes and beautiful colors. She at once
began to make a collection of them, without noticing that Pelton had
withdrawn from sight. He had quietly taken his fowling piece and
clambered along the beach to a nearby lagoon, where he soon bagged a
couple of fat mallard ducks.
No one visiting that region now can have any adequate idea of the
vast number of ducks there in the early days. The air was fairly
black with these game birds; he could easily have taken a dozen, but
hastened back with the two for dinner.
"_Nika mamook_," Sally said, when she saw the birds, meaning that she
would cook them; Pelton readily assented and joined Kate in her
search along the beach. The pit of hot rock was nearly ready for
{131} the clams; and Sally soon had the ducks prepared for it. Now
the rocks were smoothed off, the pit enlarged and the whole covered
with a layer of small branches of fir twig ends.
The ducks were placed in the middle of the pit and the remaining
space filled with clams. As a sudden dash of water produced an
abundant supply of steam, the whole was quickly covered with boughs
and ferns, upon which a thin layer of earth was laid and topped by
hot rocks from the larger fire.
It was a clambake by experts. Before that time Kate and Pelton did
not know what the term meant, but they lived to see it become
synonymous with a feast. The "clambake" here supplanted the barbecue
in Missouri, where the ox was roasted on a spit.
As years passed they also witnessed the gathering of a thousand or
more people at the annual jubilee, all partaking of the luscious
contents of an immense clam pit covered with wagon-loads of unhusked
green corn. This institution, the clambake that was for many years
the central attraction for social gatherings, political conventions
and even religious meetings, is only but a memory.
As the time approached for the turn of the tide, Steicca became
impatient to open the pit. There came an interim when the battle of
the waters temporarily ceased, as the ebb tide spent its force and
before the oncoming rush of the flood from the ocean. Steicca knew
that when the flood regained mastery, it would be impossible to stem
the force of the {132} current in the Narrows and round the point to
the large bay ahead. But Sally was unwilling to interfere with her
well-laid plans for the first dinner served to her new friends, the
admired lady of the village they had left, and the gentleman who had
traveled so far to win her.
Indian women, though occupying humble and inferior positions in the
life of their tribes, are not devoid of imagination or true devotion
to their husbands and children. An Indian mother never chastises her
child, and will seldom run counter to the wishes of her husband.
But to open the pit before the contents were ready to serve would
break her heart. In this dilemma, woman-like, she appealed to Kate,
who had watched with interest the painstaking preparations for the
feast and sympathized with Sally in her distress.
"Of course," Isaac said when the situation was explained by Kate,
"I'm willing to stay if you are; it's just as jolly here as around
the point in the big bay." And Sally was soon made happy by the word
they would camp and stop over there until the next tide.
Pelton desired to make the camp leisurely to try his hand, and began
to move the outfit from the canoe. Machinery seldom runs smooth on
first trial, and so it is on a camping trip; several things had been
overlooked or mislaid and a number of surplus articles were found.
The folding cot, stools and the stove came out all right. While
Sally was busy with {133} the clambake, Kate was arranging the
details of the forthcoming meal, for which she had made ample
provision before leaving home.
Steicca had erected their camp, consisting of mats fastened to a
semi-circle of small poles driven obliquely into the ground; such was
the usual temporary shelter of nomad Indians even in midwinter,
affording protection from the wind but little from the rain. Sally
seemed as proud of the camp as Kate was of their new tent and camp
equipage.
While waiting the opening of the clam pit, Sally brought out her
knitting for "Siwash" (Indian) socks, made of coarse thread from wool
carded in her own camp and formed into yarn by manipulating the crude
rolls with the palm of the hand. Indian women are always busy, and
seem at a loss to pass the time without knitting or weaving mats,
making baskets or moccasins, while the average Indian man is
apparently ill at ease when he has something to do.
Sally had some plain shaped plates made from the inner bark of the
cedar with a shallow rim on the outer edge, all water-proof; on
these, as we shall see later, she served the clams and ducks. Having
been busy with her camp work, Sally had forgotten to keep watch of
her boy Pete; but now he must be called in, scrubbed and otherwise
prepared for the meal. Frequent calls, Pete! Pete! brought no
response.
Finally a track was found up a ravine, leading to the discovery of
him perched on the limb of a {134} scraggy tree high above the reach
of his mother. Boy-like, white or Indian, young or old, he had gone,
in search of adventure, and while looking for bird's nests, had
ventured too far to easily return.
Did his mother scold him? Not at all. Indian women do not scold
their children or their men, but sometimes do each other to the point
where words fail, and facial grimaces take their place.
The time had arrived to open the pit, and everything was in
readiness; Sally beckoned to Kate, who came over to the spot with
Pelton, whose curiosity was aroused. Steicca was on hand to see; and
of course Pete was there, subdued and hungry. The outer covering of
stone, earth and boughs were first carefully removed, revealing the
inner covering through which the steam had percolated.
"_Closhe_" (all right), Sally said to herself as she lifted the inner
covering and disclosed the contents cooked to perfection. Both ducks
were handed to Kate (one of which was promptly returned by Pelton),
and the plates piled high with clams. Kate divided her own supplies
with Sally; and the banquet was on in both camps.
Such was the experience of Pelton and Kate in their first camp; her
diary briefly tells the story in these words, "Tuesday ----185-,
broke camp early; encountered tide-rips so strong as to spin the
canoe in a dizzy whirl. Sally lost control for awhile, a little
water spilled over into the canoe; somehow wasn't frightened much."
{135}
A few hours sufficed to bring them into the calm waters of a large
bay where numerous fishing parties, trolling for salmon, were in
sight. Here and there glimpses were had of passing canoes, and the
thump of paddles mingled with songs, loud laughter or talk to distant
parties. The beach for miles was lined with Indian camps, where some
of the men were lounging in listless idleness of mind and body,
seemingly almost too indolent to breathe, while others--and
particularly the women--were industriously drying the fish, or busily
occupied with their crude handiwork.
The catch of salmon was of medium size; sixty-pound specimens were
taken with nets in shallow waters, and there seemed to be no limit to
the supply. Little did Pelton then realize the tremendous commercial
value of this product of the sea, amounting afterwards to hundreds of
millions of dollars annually.
In the far distance a white-topped dome reached above the clouds that
hung upon the lower levels, all reflected in the placid waters of the
bay. Steicca and Sally rested from their labors, and floated with
the tide. A brief entry in Kate's diary describes the scene,
"Beautiful beyond my powers of description--unbroken evergreen
forests in every direction; snow-capped mountains about as far away
as the eye can see; a thousand Indians in sight on the beach and in
their canoes."
Pelton planned to go direct to the forty beautiful {136} islands he
had been told could be visited within the waters of Puget Sound, and
to more carefully examine the country on their return. The day's
sailing, supplemented by four paddles, left the great mountain dimmed
by increased distance, but brought into the far view another of
almost equal grandeur, and opened to larger channels of waters than
any left behind.
A council held in the morning decided that the course should lie to
the dim outline of a headland discernible just above the horizon;
wind and tide were favorable, and with the aid of the two Indians
rapid progress could be made. An alternate course would be to follow
the shore-line down to the objective point, considerably farther and
no less dangerous; and so the direct route was chosen.
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Tons of furniture, trunks, provisions and other things were abandoned
along the Trail, often with a sign like the one shown in this
illustration; see pages 42 and 180.
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[1] Over nine hundred square miles of territory were ceded, reserving
only six sections for about nine hundred Indians--and that high
ground, heavily timbered and entirely unsuited to their needs. A
more outrageous "treaty" was never made between the Government of the
United States and its Indian wards; its terms would be unbelievable
were they not preserved among the records of the Medicine Creek
Treaty, December, 1864, in the Archives at Washington. In less than
a year conflict broke out, and massacres followed, with losses of
life to both the U.S. troops and the Indians. The latter were
defeated in the field, as noted in the text; but they fared better in