"I have been thinking of you all day," he said, "and pitying you,
knowing how miserable you were, and as soon as I saw your canoe
coming back I was ashamed to think that I had been sitting warm and
dry at my fire while you were out in the storm; therefore I made
haste to strip off my dry clothing and put on these wet rags to share
your misery and show how much I love you."
I had another long talk with Ka-hood-oo-shough the next day.
"I am not able," he said, "to tell you how much good your words have
done me. Your words are good, and they are strong words. Some of my
people are foolish, and when they make their salmon-traps they do not
take care to tie the poles firmly together, and when the big
rain-floods come the traps break and are washed away because the
people who made them are foolish people. But your words are strong
words and when storms come to try them they will stand the storms."
There was much hand shaking as we took our leave and assurances of
eternal friendship. The grand old man stood on the shore watching us
and waving farewell until we were out of sight.
We now steered for the Muir Glacier and arrived at the front on the
east side the evening of the third, and camped on the end of the
moraine, where there was a small stream. Captain Tyeen was inclined
to keep at a safe distance from the tremendous threatening cliffs of
the discharging wall. After a good deal of urging he ventured within
half a mile of them, on the east side of the fiord, where with Mr.
Young I went ashore to seek a camp-ground on the moraine, leaving the
Indians in the canoe. In a few minutes after we landed a huge berg
sprung aloft with awful commotion, and the frightened Indians
incontinently fled down the fiord, plying their paddles with
admirable energy in the tossing waves until a safe harbor was reached
around the south end of the moraine. I found a good place for a camp
in a slight hollow where a few spruce stumps afforded firewood. But
all efforts to get Tyeen out of his harbor failed. "Nobody knew," he
said, "how far the angry ice mountain could throw waves to break his
canoe." Therefore I had my bedding and some provisions carried to my
stump camp, where I could watch the bergs as they were discharged and
get night views of the brow of the glacier and its sheer jagged face
all the way across from side to side of the channel. One night the
water was luminous and the surge from discharging icebergs churned
the water into silver fire, a glorious sight in the darkness.
