A little later he made another winter journey of great discomfort, suffering much from cold and hunger. His return to Okanagan was down what Ross calls the Sa-mick-a-meigh River,[3] a region which twenty-five or thirty years ago abounded in mountain sheep and was often visited by Eastern sportsmen.
In his account of the journey of Mr. Clarke and his party to Spokane, made the August previous, Ross gives an account of the loss and recovery of Ross Cox, which that author has himself told in detail in his book referred to in a previous volume.[4] Ross treats the adventure somewhat lightly, although he does remark that when he was at Spokane in the winter Cox had hardly recovered yet.
It was the next spring that Clarke, an old Northwester, who might have known better, committed the grave indiscretion of hanging an Indian who had stolen a silver goblet but afterward returned it. It was not until the deed had been done and the angry Indians had disappeared to carry the news in all directions and to assemble surrounding tribes to take revenge on the white men that Clarke appreciated what he had done. Fortunately the people were all packed up ready to start, and they hastily loaded their canoes and went on down the stream.
McKenzie, in the meantime, had reached the middle of the Nez Percés country and was wintering there, but he soon found that he was not in a trapping country. The Nez Percés hunted buffalo for food and went to war for glory. They did not like beaver trapping and made a poor trade. Now, McKenzie while on a visit to Fort Spokane learned from McTavish, a Northwester, of the war between Great Britain and the United States. He hurried back to his post there, put his goods in cache, and set out for Astoria, which he reached in 1813. At Astoria things were not cheerful. The ship had not returned, and McDougall and McKenzie felt that they were likely to be pushed out of the country by the Northwesters. However, McKenzie turned about and started up the river. When he reached his post he found that his cache had been raised. The older Indians admitted the robbery, and said that it had been done by young men whom they could not control. McKenzie was a man of great courage, and when the chiefs would not assist him in recovering his property he determined to recover it himself.