The Busy Life of Eighty-Five Years of Ezra Meeker. Ezra Meeker Meeker

might be seen industriously pursuing some object, but as a class there seemed to be but little life in them, and we concluded they were the laziest set on earth. I afterwards materially modified that opinion, as I became better acquainted with their habits, for I have found just as industrious Indians, both men and women, and as reliable workers, as among the whites, though this class, it may be said, is exceptional with the men. The women are all industrious.

      Shall we camp here and spy out the land, or shall we go forward and see what lay before us? Here were the ideals, that had enticed us so far from our old home, where "ships went down into the sea," with the trade of the whole world before us. We waxed eloquent, catching inspiration from people of the town. After a second sober thought we found we had nothing to trade but labor, and we had not come this far to be laborers for hire. We had come to look up a place to make a farm and a farm we were going to have. We, therefore, set about searching for claims, and the more we searched the less we liked the looks of things.

      The gravelly plains near Steilacoom would not do: neither the heavy fir timber lands skirting the waters of the Sound, and we were nonplused and almost ready to condemn the country. Finally, on the fourth day after a long, wearisome tramp, we cast off at high tide, and in a dead calm, to continue our cruise. The senior soon dropped into a comfortable afternoon nap, leaving me in full command. As the sun shone nice and warm and the tide was taking us rapidly in the direction we wanted to go, why not join, even if we did lose the sight seeing for which the journey was made.

      I was shortly after aroused by the senior exclaiming, "What is that?" and then answering half to himself and half to me, "Why, as I live, it's a deer swimming way out here in the bay." Answering, half asleep and half awake, that that could not be, the senior said: "Well, that's what it is." We gave chase and soon succeeded in getting a rope over its horns. We had by this time drifted into the Narrows, and soon found that we had something more important to look after than towing a deer among the tide-rips of the Sound, and turning him loose pulled for dear life for the shore, and found shelter in an eddy. A perpendicular bluff rose from the high water mark, leaving no place for a camp fire or bed. The tide seemed to roll in waves and with contending forces of currents and counter currents, yet all moving in a general direction. It was our first introduction to a real genuine, live tide-rip, that seemed to harry the waters as if boiling in a veritable caldron, swelling up here and there in centers to whirl in dizzy velocity and at times break into a foam, and, where a light breeze prevailed, into spray. Then in some areas it would seem the waters in solid volume would leap up in conical, or pointed shape—small waves broken into short sections, that would make it quite difficult for a flat bottom boat like our little skiff to float very long. We congratulated ourselves upon the escape, while belittling our careless imitation of the natives of floating with the tide. Just then some Indian canoes passed along moving with the tide. We expected to see them swamped as they encountered the troubled waters, but to our astonishment they passed right through without taking a drop of water. Then here came two well manned canoes creeping along shore against the tide. I have said well-manned, but in fact, half the paddles were wielded by women, and the post of honor, or that where most dexterity was required, was occupied by a woman. In shore, short eddies would favor the party, to be ended by a severe tug against the stiff current.

      "Me-si-ka-kwass kopa s'kookum chuck," said the maiden in the bow of the first canoe, as it drew along side our boat, in which we were sitting.

      Since our evening's experience at the clam bake camp, we had been industriously studying language, and pretty well mastered the Chinook, and so we with little difficulty understood her to ask if we were afraid of the rough waters, to which we responded, part in English and part in Chinook, that we were, and besides that it was impossible for us to proceed against the strong current.

      "Ne-si-ka mit-lite," that is to say, she said they were going to camp with us and wait for the turn of the tide, and accordingly landed near by, and so we must wait for the remainder of this story in chapters to follow.