alone with a few wandering bands of Indians, starving one day and feasting the next, watchful for an encounter with the dreaded Blackfoot hunters on their common buffalo-grounds, and startled frequently by false alarms.
On the 18th, anxious to reach some post of the Hudson's Bay Company, Parker took ten Nez Percés and went forward, making twice the distance in a day that could be made with the main body, and pushing on over the rough and precipitous Salmon River and Kooskooskie ranges, reached the Nez Percé country on the 28th, his health rapidly improving as he emerged from the "wild, cold mountains," as he pathetically styled them. The Nez Percés received their friends and their reverend guest with the usual noisy demonstrations, firing salutes, and feasting them with dried salmon. On the following day the journey was continued to the confluence of the Kooskooskie with Lewis River, whence, after crossing the former river, the little party hastened, by a well-worn trail, to Fort Walla Walla.
On reaching this post, the 6th of October, Parker was kindly received by Pambrun, the agent in charge, who set before him roasted duck, bread, butter, milk, and sugar, spread upon a table, with a chair to sit upon, unwonted luxuries which excited the warmest thanks. Here Parker rested for two days only, but long enough to note the difference between the conduct of the servants of the British fur company and the boisterous and reckless behavior of the American hunters and trappers in the mountains. Instead of boasting of the number of Indians they had killed, as the latter often did in his presence, he found the British company commendably kind in their treatment of the Indians, whose friendship they strove to gain, and whom they sometimes even instructed in religion and morality.[1]
- ↑ Parker's Jour., 124.
