n righting the boat and clambering into her. By some
fortunate chance they were tossed outside the breakers and into calmer
waters. The boat was bailed out, and the next morning Weeks sculled
her ashore with the one remaining oar. One of the Sandwich Islanders
was so severely injured that he died in the boat, and the other was
probably dying from exposure. The relief party prosecuted their {271}
search for the Kanaka and found him the next day almost dead.

The loss of these eight men and these two boats was a serious blow to
so small an expedition, but there was nothing to be done about it, and
the work of selecting a permanent location for the trading-post on the
south shore, unloading the cargo, and building the fort was rapidly
carried on, although not without the usual quarrels between captain and
men. After landing the company, Thorn had been directed by Mr. Astor
to take the _Tonquin_ up the coast to gather a load of furs. He was to
touch at the settlement which they had named Astoria, on his way back,
and take on board what furs the partners had been able to procure and
bring them back to New York. Thorn was anxious to get away, and on the
1st of June, having finished the unloading of the ship, and having seen
the buildings approaching completion, accompanied by McKay as
supercargo, and James Lewis of New York, as clerk, he started on his
trading voyage.

That was the last that anybody ever saw of Thorn or the _Tonquin_ and
her men. Several months after her departure a Chehalis Indian, named
Lamanse, wandered into Astoria with a terrible story of an appalling
disaster. The _Tonquin_ made her way up the coast, Thorn buying furs
as he could. At one of her stops at Gray's Harbour, this Indian was
engaged as interpreter. About the middle of June, the _Tonquin_
entered Nootka Sound, an ocean estuary between Nootka and Vancouver
Islands, about midway of the western shore of the latter. There she
anchored before a large Nootka Indian village, called Newity.

The place was even then not unknown to history. The Nootkas were a
fierce and savage race. A few {272} years before the advent of the
_Tonquin_, the American ship _Boston_, Captain Slater, was trading in
Nootka Sound. The captain had grievously insulted a native chieftain.
The ship had been surprised, every member of her crew except two
murdered, and the ship burned. These two had been wounded and
captured, but when it was learned that one was a g