To anyone who treated them fairly, the Indians
became loyal friends.

Mowich Man, an Indian whom I was to know during many years, was one of
our neighbors. He frequently passed our cabin with his canoe and
people. He was a great hunter, a crack shot, and an all-round Indian of
good parts. Many is the saddle of venison that he brought me in the
course of years. Other pioneers likewise had special friends among the
Indians.

Some of Mowich Man's people were fine singers. His camp, or his canoe if
he was traveling, was always the center for song and merriment. It is a
curious fact that one seldom can get the Indian music by asking for it,
but rather must wait for its spontaneous outburst. Indian songs in those
days came from nearly every nook and corner and seemed to pervade the
whole country. We often could hear the songs and accompanying stroke of
the paddle long before we saw the floating canoes.

[Illustration: Carrying a dairy to the new mining town.]

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE STAMPEDE FOR THE GOLD DIGGINGS

HARDLY had we got fairly over the Indian War when another wave of
excitement broke up our pioneer plans again. On March 21, 1858, the
schooner _Wild Pigeon_ arrived at Steilacoom with the news that the
Indians had discovered gold on Fraser River, that they had traded
several pounds of the precious metal with the Hudson's Bay Company, and
that three hundred people had left Victoria and its vicinity for the new
land of El Dorado. Furthermore, the report ran, the mines were
exceedingly rich.

The wave of excitement that went through the little settlement upon the
receipt of this news was repeated in every town and hamlet of the whole
Pacific Coast. It continued even around the world, summoning adventurous
spirits from all civilized countries of the earth.

Everybody, women folk and all, wanted to go, and would have started pell
mell had there not been that restraining influence of the second
thought, especially powerful with people who had just gone through the
mill of adversity. My family was still in the blockhouse that we had
built in the town of Steilacoom during the Indian War. Our cattle were
peacefully grazing on the plains a few miles away.

One of the local merchants, Samuel McCaw, bundled up a few goods, made a
flying trip up Fraser River, and came back with fifty ounces of gold
dust and the news that the mines were all that had been reported and
more, too. This of course, added fuel t