[Illustration: A cat-and-clay chimney, made of small split sticks embedded in layers of clay mortar.]
My feelings may well be imagined when, upon returning, I found wife, baby, and tent all gone. I knew that smallpox was raging among the Indians, and that a camp where it was prevalent was less than a quarter of a mile away. The dread disease had terrors then that it does not now possess. Could it be possible my folks had been taken sick and had been removed?
The question was soon solved. It appeared that I had scarcely got out of sight on my trip back with the oxen before one of those royal pioneer matrons had come to the camp. She pleaded and insisted, and finally almost frightened the little wife into going with her and sharing her house, which was near by, but out of danger from the smallpox. God bless those earlier pioneers! They were all good to us, sometimes to the point of embarrassment, in their generous hospitality.
Oliver was to have had the cabin ready by the time I returned. He not only had not done that, but had taken the boat and had left no sign to tell us where either brother or boat could be found. Not knowing what else to do, I paddled over to the town of Steilacoom. There I found out where the boat and the provisions had been left, and after an earnest parley succeeded in getting possession. With my canoe in tow I soon made my way back to where my little flock was, and speedily transferred all to the spot that was to be our island dwelling. We set up our tent, and felt at home once more.
[Illustration: Crows breaking clams by dropping them on boulders.]
Steilacoom, three miles across the bay, had grown during my absence, and in the distance it looked like a city in fact as well as in name. Mt. Rainier looked bigger and taller than ever. Even the songs of the Indians sounded better; the canoes looked more graceful, and the paddles seemed to be wielded more expertly. Everything looked cheerful; everything interested us, especially the crows, with their trick of breaking clams by rising in the air and dropping them on the boulders. There were so many new things to observe that for a time we almost forgot that we were nearly out of provisions and money and did not know what had happened to Oliver.