so instructed by the company that they fled at his approach. Fort Walla Walla was closed against him not even a dog could be bought on the Columbia. The Indians slunk away as if from a contagion. Bonneville could not get a crew to take him down to Fort Vancouver. He had to give it up, and turning back lost his way in the deep snows of the Blue Mountains. Finally the Nez Perces found him and brought him fainting to the lodge of Red Wolf on the Snake. The Nez Perces nursed him like a brother, gave him horses and provisions, and sent him and his men out of the country. Then Irving wrote the "Bonneville Tales " commentaries on the days when the Hudson's Bay Company ruled on the Columbia.
When Captain Wyeth was on his way to Oregon he had fallen in with a party of Blackfeet at a mountain rendezvous where Bonneville was and Sublette's trappers. There was a half-breed interpreter in Bonneville's camp, Baptiste Dorion, son of the interpreter in Irving's " Astoria." The Blackfeet greeted the whites. "We have heard of the Americans/' said the Blackfoot chief, decorated from head to foot in eagle plumes. He held Wyeth's hand in friendly converse when "whiz " went a bullet from Dorion's rifle. As the chief of the Blackfeet fell Dorion snatched his painted robe and fled. Never a robe was bought more dearly. The outraged Blackfeet pursued the white man from that hour. Four years later one of Wyeth's men smoked the pipe of peace with Jemmy Jock, the Rob Roy of the Blackfeet. Even as he smoked Jemmy Jock gave the signal and Godin fell. Upon his brow Jemmy Jock carved Wyeth's name "N. J. W."
"The Indian has a double nature," said Dr. McLoughlin, "one peaceable and friendly, one savage and dia-
