The Whale
Had Been Stranded Between Two Shore Villages Tenanted By The Killamucks,
As Captain Clark Called Them.
They are now known as the Tillamook Indians,
and their name is preserved in Tillamook County, Oregon.
The white
men found it difficult to secure much of the blubber, or the oil.
Although the Indians had large quantities of both, they sold it
with much reluctance. In Clark's private diary is found this entry:
"Small as this stock [of oil and lubber] is I prize it highly;
and thank Providence for directing the whale to us; and think him
more kind to us than he was to Jonah, having sent this monster
to be swallowed by us instead of swallowing us as Jonah's did."
While here, the party had a startling experience, as the journal says: -
"Whilst smoking with the Indians, Captain Clark was surprised,
about ten o'clock, by a loud, shrill outcry from the opposite village,
on hearing which all the Indians immediately started up to cross
the creek, and the guide informed him that someone had been killed.
On examination one of the men [M'Neal] was discovered to be absent,
and a guard [Sergeant Pryor and four men] despatched, who met him
crossing the creek in great haste. An Indian belonging to another band,
who happened to be with the Killamucks that evening, had treated
him with much kindness, and walked arm in arm with him to a tent
where our man found a Chinnook squaw, who was an old acquaintance.
From the conversation and manner of the stranger, this woman
discovered that his object was to murder the white man for the sake
of the few articles on his person; when he rose and pressed our man
to go to another tent where they would find something better to eat,
she held M'Neal by the blanket; not knowing her object, he freed
himself from her, and was going on with his pretended friend,
when she ran out and gave the shriek which brought the men
of the village over, and the stranger ran off before M'Neal knew
what had occasioned the alarm."
The "mighty hunter" of the Lewis and Clark expedition was Drewyer,
whose name has frequently been mentioned in these pages.
Under date of January 12, the journal has this just tribute
to the man:
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