ver and was floating rapidly toward the great shoot, when an
Indian observing it plunged in after it. The whole mass of the waters of
the Columbia, just preparing to descend its narrow channel, carried the
animal down with great rapidity. The Indian followed it fearlessly
to within one hundred and fifty feet of the rocks, where he would
inevitably have been dashed to pieces; but seizing his prey he
turned round and swam ashore with great composure. We very willingly
relinquished our right to the bird in favor of the Indian who had thus
saved it at the imminent hazard of his life; he immediately set to work
and picked off about half the feathers, and then, without opening it,
ran a stick through it and carried it off to roast."

With many hair's-breadth escapes, the expedition now passed through the
rapids or "great shoot." The river here is one hundred and fifty yards
wide and the rapids are confined to an area four hundred yards long,
crowded with islands and rocky ledges. They found the Indians living
along the banks of the stream to be kindly disposed; but they had
learned, by their intercourse with tribes living below, to set a high
value on their wares. They asked high prices for anything they had for
sale. The journal says:--

"We cannot learn precisely the nature of the trade carried on by the
Indians with the inhabitants below. But as their knowledge of the whites
seems to be very imperfect, and as the only articles which they carry to
market, such as pounded fish, bear-grass, and roots, cannot be an object
of much foreign traffic, their intercourse appears to be an intermediate
trade with the natives near the mouth of the Columbia. From them these
people obtain, in exchange for their fish, roots, and bear-grass, blue
and white beads, copper tea-kettles, brass armbands, some scarlet and
blue robes, and a few articles of old European clothing. But their great
object is to obtain beads, an article which holds the first place in
their ideas of relative value, and to procure which they will sacrifice
their last article of clothing or last mouthful of food. Independently
of their fondness for them as an ornament, these beads are the medium of
trade, by which they obtain from the Indians still higher up the river,
robes, skins, chappelel bread, bear-grass, etc. Those Indians in
turn employ them to procure from the Indians in the Rocky Mountains,
bear-grass, pachico-roots, robes, etc.

"These Indians are rather below