ll strike. Our trail to the Okanagon goes over a
corner of it."

"We're going to those hills?" The mother looked at her little girl and
back where the cloud had gone.

"Only a corner, Liza. The ferry puts us over on it, and we've got to
go by the ferry or stay this side of the Columbia. You wouldn't want to
start a home here?"

They had driven twenty-one hundred miles at a walk. Standing by them
were the six horses with the wagon, and its tunneled roof of canvas
shone duskily on the empty verge of the wilderness. A dry windless
air hung over the table-land of the Big Bend, but a sound rose from
somewhere, floating voluminous upon the silence, and sank again.

"Rapids!" The man pointed far up the giant rut of the stream to where a
streak of white water twinkled at the foot of the hills. "We've struck
the river too high," he added.

"Then we don't cross here?" said the woman, quickly.

"No. By what they told me the cabin and the ferry ought to be five miles
down."

Her face fell. "Only five miles! I was wondering, John--Wouldn't there
be a way round for the children to--"

"Now, mother," interrupted the husband, "that ain't like you. We've
crossed plenty Indian reservations this trip already."

"I don't want to go round," the little girl said. "Father, don't make me
go round."

Mart, the boy, with a loose hook of hair hanging down to his eyes from
his hat, did not trouble to speak. He had been disappointed in the
westward journey to find all the Indians peaceful. He knew which way
he should go now, and he went to the wagon to look once again down the
clean barrel of his rifle.

"Why, Nancy, you don't like Indians?" said her mother.

"Yes, I do. I like chiefs."

Mrs. Clallam looked across the river. "It was so strange, John, the way
they acted. It seems to get stranger, thinking about it."

"They didn't see us. They didn't have a notion--"

"But if we're going right over?"

"We're not going over there, Liza. That quick water's the Mahkin Rapids,
and our ferry's clear down below from this place."

"What could they have been after, do you think?"

"Those chaps? Oh, nothing, I guess. They weren't killing anybody."

"Playing cross-tag," said Mart.

"I'd like to know, John, how you know they weren't killing anybody. They
might have been trying to."

"Then we're perfectly safe, Liza. We can set and let 'em kill us all
day."

"Well, I don't think it's any kind of way to behave, running around
shootin