THE SIWASH CHARMIndustriously the two panned gold until the river froze and snow covered the ground. Then they built a meat cache and, when the weather got colder, they put in the short days hunting and netting fish through the ice.
From time to time they visited the Indian village, where the band of Ignatz lived in their skin tepees. There were twenty-five or thirty lodges—probably a hundred souls in all. The Indians were friendly and hospitable. The women—“kloochmen” they were called in the jargon—were reserved and overawed by these men with the strange hairy faces, but gradually this reserve was dropped, and at times they even entered into the conversation.
In the spring another trip was made to the fort site for supplies, and the summer passed in panning gold. Powder and lead were tr
