nwood and ash trees. In this prairie were also signs of deer and
elk.

"When we landed for dinner a number of Indians came down, for the
purpose, as we supposed, of paying us a friendly visit, as they had put
on their finest dresses. In addition to their usual covering, they had
scarlet and blue blankets, sailor's jackets and trowsers, shirts, and
hats. They had all of them either war-axes, spears, and bows and arrows,
or muskets and pistols, with tin powder-flasks. We smoked with them, and
endeavoured to show them every attention, but soon found them very
assuming and disagreeable companions. While we were eating, they stole
the pipe with which they were smoking, and a great coat of one of the
men. We immediately searched them all, and found the coat stuffed under
the root of a tree near where they were sitting; but the pipe we could
not recover. Finding us discontented with them, and determined not to
suffer any imposition, they showed their displeasure in the only way
they dared, by returning in ill humour to their village. We then
proceeded, and soon met two canoes, with twelve men of the same Skilloot
nation, who were on their way from below. The larger of the canoes was
ornamented with the figures of a bear in the bow and a man in the stern,
both nearly as large as life, both made of painted wood, and very neatly
fastened to the boat. In the same canoe were two Indians gaudily
dressed, and with round hats. This circumstance induced us to give the
name of Image Canoe to the large island, the lower end of which we were
now passing, at the distance of nine miles from its head. We had seen
two smaller islands to the right, and three more near its lower
extremity." ... "The river was now about a mile and a half in width,
with a gentle current, and the bottoms extensive and low, but not
subject to be overflowed. Three miles below Image Canoe Island we came
to four large houses on the left side; here we had a full view of the
mountain which we had first seen from the Muscleshell Rapid on the 19th
of October, and which we now found to be, in fact, the Mount St. Helen
of Vancouver. It bore north 25 deg. east, about ninety miles distant, rose
in the form of a sugar loaf to a very great height, and was covered with
snow. A mile lower we passed a single house on the left, and another on
the right. The Indians had now learned so much of us that their
curiosity was without any mixture of fear, and their visits became very
frequ