been too familiar with her, and you are caught with the goods, you do
not fly into a far country for fear of your life. You still hang around,
and the worst you can get is perhaps a pounding from the jealous
neighbor; and the sweet environment is worth the risk.

Johnny's skookum tumtum was somewhat out of commission for a while. When
he met Mrs. Peter on the street after that they grinned at each other a
few times without speaking; and by and by, when they thought Peter was
out of sight, they would stop and talk for a while. He asked her again
to fly to Kamloops with him, and she seemed to be swinging on the
balance. Johnny dwelt upon his worldly assets--his saddle, his bridle,
and all his skookum icties. Peter soon realized that his wife was eating
at his table and living in another man's tumtum, but he kept on chewing
his beans and bacon and dried soquas (salmon) in silence, and, but for
the intervention of Providence, Peter might have followed in the
footsteps of Paul Spintlum.

One day Cultus Johnny and his sister went across the river to fish. They
cast their nets directly across from the rancherie, beneath an
angry-looking, hungry, threatening, overhanging gravel bed. He and his
father and his father's fathers had fished there time out of memory. The
old men of the village were squatted here and there weaving nets for the
fishing season. Squaws were bringing in bundles of tree branches on
their backs for firewood; others were scraping the flesh from raw
deer-skins, stretched on frames which leaned against buildings. Some
young fellows, among whom was Hias Peter, were rolling up driftwood from
the river. Children were capering about, laughing and shouting. Dogs
were barking, cats mewing, roosters crowing. There was nothing but joy,
and peace, and harmony. It was just such a scene as may be witnessed on
a bright sunny day at any Indian village in the dry-belt at any time.