ything else, the motherly looking native woman began
tearing down our camp fire.

[Illustration: _Edward S. Curtis_

Indians gathering clams on the beach.]

"Let her alone, and see what she's up to," said Oliver, noticing that I
was disturbed at such interference with my well-laid plans for
bread-baking.

She covered the hot pebbles and sand where the fire had been with a
lighter layer of pebbles. Upon these the clams were deposited. They were
covered with fine twigs, and upon the twigs earth was placed.

"_Kloshe_,"[2] she said.

"_Hyas kloshe_,"[3] said her husband, who squatted near by, watching the
proceedings with evident approval.

"What did they say?" I asked.

"I know what they said, but I don't know what they meant," responded
Oliver, "unless it was she had done a good job; and I think she has."

Thus began and ended our first lesson in the Chinook jargon, and our
first experience with a clam bake.

This first clam bake gave us great encouragement. We soon learned that
the bivalves were to be found in almost unlimited quantity and were
widely distributed. The harvest was ready twice a day, when the tide was
out, and we need have no fear of a famine even if cast away in some
unfrequented place.

"_Ya-ka kloshe al-ta_,"[4] said the Indian woman, uncovering the
steaming mass and placing the clams on a sliver found near by. "_De-late
kloshe muck a muck alta._"[5]

Without understanding her words, but knowing well what she meant, we
fell to disposing of this, our first clam dinner. We divided with the
Indians the bread that had been baked and some potatoes that had been
boiled. The natives soon withdrew to their own camp.

Before retiring for the night, we repaid the visit. To see the little
fellows of the camp scud behind their mother when the strangers entered,
and shyly peep out from their retreat, while the mother lovingly
reassured them with kind and affectionate caresses, and finally coaxed
them out from under cover, revealed something of the character of the
natives that neither of us had realized before. We had been in Indian
country for nearly a year, but with guns by our side, if not in our
hands, during nearly half the time. We had not stopped to study the
Indian character. We took it for granted that the Indians were our
enemies and watched them suspiciously; but here seemed to be a
disposition to be neighborly and helpful.

We took a lesson in Chinook, and by signs and words held conve