It was of a surprising neatness, due all to him, they presently saw; the log walls covered with a sort of bunting that was also stretched across to make a ceiling below the shingles of the roof; fresh soap and towels, china service, a clean floor and bed, on the wall a print of some white and red village among elms, with a covered bridge and the water running over an apron-dam just above; and a rich smell of whiskey everywhere. 'Fix up as comfortable as yu' can,' the host repeated, 'and I'll see how Mrs. Jake's tossin' the flapjacks. She's Injun, yu' know, and five years of married life hadn't learned her to toss flapjacks. Now if I was you' (he was lingering in the doorway) 'I wouldn't shet that winder so quick. It don't smell nice yet for ladies in here, and I'd hev liked to git the time to do better for ye; but them Siwashes—well, of course, you folks see how it is. Maybe it ain't always and only white men that patronizes our goods. Uncle Sam is a long way off, and I don't say we'd ought to, but when the cat's away, why the mice will, ye know—they most always will.'
There was a rattle of boards outside, at which he shut the door quickly, and they heard him run. A light muttering came in at the window, and the mother, peeping out, saw Andy fallen among a rubbish of crates and empty cans, where he lay staring, while his two fists beat up and down like a disordered toy. Wild-Goose Jake came, and having lifted him with great tenderness, was laying him flat as Elizabeth Clallam hurried to his help.
'No, ma'am,' he sighed, 'you can't do nothing, I guess.'
'Just let me go over and get our medicines.'
'Thank you, ma'am,' said Jake, and the pain on his face was miserable to see; 'there ain't no medicine. We're kind of used to this, Andy and me. Maybe, if you wouldn't mind stayin' till he comes to—Why, a sick man takes comfort at the sight of a lady.'
When the fit had passed they helped him to his feet, and Jake led him away.
Mrs. Jake made her first appearance upon the guests sitting down to their meal, when she waited on table, passing busily forth from the kitchen with her dishes. She had but three or four English words, and her best years were plainly behind her; but her cooking was good, fried and boiled with sticks of her own chopping, and she served with industry. Indeed, a squaw is one of the few species of the domestic wife that survive today upon our continent. Andy seemed now to keep all his dislike for her, and followed her with a scowling eye, while he frequented Jake, drawing a chair to sit next him when he smoked by the wall after supper, and sometimes watching him with a sort of clouded affection upon his face. He did not talk, and the seizure had evidently jarred his mind as well as his frame. When the squaw was about lighting a lamp he brushed her arm in a childish way so that the match went out, and set him laughing. She poured out a harangue in Chinook, showing the dead match to Jake, who rose and gravely lighted the lamp himself, Andy laughing more than ever. When Mrs. Clallam had taken Nancy with her to bed, Jake walked John Clallam to the river-bank, and looking up and down, spoke a little of his real mind.
'I guess you see how it is with me. Anyway, I don't commonly hev use for stranger-folks in this house. But that little girl of yourn started cryin' about not havin' the pump along that she'd been used to seein' in the yard at home. And I says to myself, 'Look a-here, Jake, I don't care if they do ketch on to you and yer blamed whiskey business. They're not the sort to tell on you.' Gee! but that about the pump got me! And I says, 'Jake, you're goin' to give them the best you hev got.' Why, that Big Bend desert and lonesome valley of the Columbia hez chilled my heart in the days that are gone when I weren't used to things; and the little girl hed came so fur! And I knowed how she was a-feelin'.'
He stopped, and seemed to be turning matters over.
'I'm much obliged to you,' said Clallam.
'And your wife was jest beautiful about Andy. You've saw me wicked to Andy. I am, and often, for I rile turruble quick, and God forgive me! But when that boy gits at his meanness—yu've seen jest a touch of it—there's scarcely livin' with him. It seems like he got reg'lar inspired. Some days he'll lie—make up big lies to the fust man comes in at the door. They ain't harmless, his lies ain't. Then he'll trick my woman, that's real good to him; and I believe he'd lick whiskey up off the dirt. And every drop is poison for him with his complaint. But I'd ought to remember. You'd surely think I could remember, and forbear. Most likely he made a big talk to you about that cabin.'
John Clallam told him.
'Well, that's all true, for onced. I did think he'd been up to stealin' that whiskey gradual, 'stead of fishin', the times he was out all day. And the salary I give him'—Jake laughed a little—'ain't enough to
