en very successful at their posts, and considered it rash and
pusillanimous to abandon, on the first difficulty, an enterprise of such
great cost and ample promise. They made no arrangements, therefore, for
leaving the country, but acted with a view to the maintenance of their
new and prosperous establishments.

The regular time approached, when the partners of the interior--posts
were to rendezvous at the mouth of the Wallah-Wallah, on their way to
Astoria, with the peltries they had collected. Mr. Clarke accordingly
packed all his furs on twenty-eight horses, and, leaving a clerk and
four men to take charge of the post, departed on the 25th of May with
the residue of his force.

On the 30th, he arrived at the confluence of the Pavion and Lewis
rivers, where he had left his barge and canoes, in the guardianship of
the old Pierced-nosed chieftain. That dignitary had acquitted himself
more faithfully to his charge than Mr. Clarke had expected, and the
canoes were found in very tolerable order. Some repairs were necessary,
and, while they were making, the party encamped close by the village.
Having had repeated and vexatious proofs of the pilfering propensities
of this tribe during his former visit, Mr. Clarke ordered that a wary
eye should be kept upon them.

He was a tall, good-looking man, and somewhat given to pomp and
circumstance, which made him an object of note in the eyes of the
wondering savages. He was stately, too, in his appointments, and had
a silver goblet or drinking cup, out of which he would drink with
a magnificent air, and then lock it up in a large garde vin, which
accompanied him in his travels, and stood in his tent. This goblet
had originally been sent as a present from Mr. Astor to Mr. M'Kay,
the partner who had unfortunately been blown up in the Tonquin. As it
reached Astoria after the departure of that gentleman, it had remained
in the possession of Mr. Clarke.

A silver goblet was too glittering a prize not to catch the eye of a
Pierced-nose. It was like the shining tin case of John Reed. Such a
wonder had never been seen in the land before. The Indians talked about
it to one another. They marked the care with which it was deposited in
the garde vin, like a relic in its shrine, and concluded that it must
be a "great medicine." That night Mr. Clarke neglected to lock up his
treasure; in the morning the sacred casket was open--the precious relic
gone!

Clarke was now outrageous. All the pas