At this meal the young sailor tasted both pâté-de-foie-gras and whale oil for the first time, and after carefully considering the merits of the two delicacies, declared that he could not tell which was the worse, and that as it would be just as difficult to learn to like one as the other, he thought he would devote his energies to the oil.
After supper a rude shelter against the chill dampness of the night was constructed of small poles covered with a number of the useful bark mats, of which the Indian women of that coast make enormous quantities. A few armfuls of spruce-tips were cut and spread beneath it, a couple of mats were laid over these, two more were provided for covering, and Alaric's first camp bed was ready for him. Both lads were so dead tired that they needed no second invitation to fling themselves down on their sweet-scented couch, and were asleep almost instantly. As Skookum John and Bah-die had also been out all the night before, they were not long in following the example of their guests, and so within an hour after supper the whole camp was buried in a profound slumber.
By earliest daylight of the next morning the older Indian was up and stirring about very softly so as not to awaken the strangers. He was about to make an effort to earn that twenty-five dollars, and believed that by careful management it might be his before noon. He planned to notify the commander of the cutter that while he could deliver one of the desired lads into his hands, the other had taken a canoe and gone to Tacoma, where he would no doubt be readily found. If the _Tyhee_ of the _piah-ship_ agreed to pay him the offered reward or even half of it for one lad, he would ask that a boat might be sent to the camp for him. In the meantime he would return first and invite both boys to go out fishing--Bonny in a canoe with him, and the other in a second canoe with Bah-die, who would be instructed to take his passenger out of sight somewhere up the coast. Then the cutter's boat would be allowed to overtake his canoe, and Bonny would be handed over to those who wanted him, without trouble.
It was an admirably conceived plan, and the old Siwash chuckled over it as he softly launched his lightest canoe, stepped into it, and paddled swiftly away.