there, and spent a day with them in one of their villages in 1850.
General Clark had been in many hard Indian fights, and was of a family of famous Indian fighters, but he learned in that far western expedition to respect the hospitality, the courage, the heroism, and manliness of the Indian. He resolved to leave nothing undone to express his gratitude to his old Oregon friends, and he charged his young men to see to it personally that they had every comfort. He knew Indian character and stoicism, and when his aids told him they "could make nothing out of the Indians, or learn what they wanted," he replied, "Don't hurry them, give them time, and they will make known their mission to this far-away place." General Clark was an earnest and devoted Catholic, and he ordered that the Indians be taken to all the services in the cathedral, and also to all places of amusement likely to entertain them. Week after week passed, and the Indian stoicism continued; but finally in an audience with the General they told him all. The Indians all spoke "the Chinook," a pleasing word language invented by the Hudson Bay Company, and was to all the Indian tribes, from Hudson's Bay to the Columbia, what the classic languages are to the learned world. It was their trading language.
The General had a good interpreter, and knew
