“The appearance of the whale seemed to be a matter of importance to all the neighboring Indians, and as we might be able to procure some of it for ourselves, or at least purchase blubber from the Indians, a small parcel of merchandise was prepared, and a party of the men held in readiness to set out in the morning.  As soon as this resolution was known, Chaboneau and his wife requested that they might be permitted to accompany us.  The poor woman stated very earnestly that she had travelled a great way with us to see the great water, yet she had never been down to the coast, and now that this monstrous fish was also to be seen, it seemed hard that she should be permitted to see neither the ocean nor the whale.  So reasonable a request could not be denied; they were therefore suffered to accompany Captain Clark, who, January 6th, after an early breakfast, set out with twelve men in two canoes.”

After a long and tedious trip, the camp of the saltmakers was reached, and Captain Clark and his men went on to the remains of the whale, only the skeleton being left by the rapacious and hungry Indians.  The whale had been stranded between two shore villages tenanted by the Killamucks, as Captain Clark called them.  They are now known as the Tillamook Indians, and their name is preserved in Tillamook County, Oregon.  The white men found it difficult to secure much of the blubber, or the oil.  Although the Indians had large quantities of both, they sold it with much reluctance.  In Clark’s private diary is found this entry:  “Small as this stock (of oil and lubber) is I prize it highly; and thank Providence for directing the whale to us; and think him more kind to us than he was to Jonah, having sent this monster to be swallowed by us instead of swallowing us as Jonah’s did.”  While here, the party had a startling experience, as the journal says:—­

“Whilst smoking with the Indians, Captain Clark was surprised, about ten o’clock, by a loud, shrill outcry from the opposite village, on hearing which all the Indians immediately started up to cross the creek, and the guide informed him that someone had been killed.  On examination one of the men (M’Neal) was discovered to be absent, and a guard (Sergeant Pryor and four men) despatched, who met him crossing the creek in great haste.  An Indian belonging to another band, who happened to be with the Killamucks that evening, had treated him with much kindness, and walked arm in arm with him to a tent where our man found a Chinnook squaw, who was an old acquaintance.  From the conversation and manner of the stranger, this woman discovered that his object was to murder the white man for the sake of the few articles on his person; when he rose and pressed our man to go to another tent where they would find something better to eat, she held M’Neal by the blanket; not knowing her object, he freed himself from her, and was going on with his pretended friend, when she ran out and gave the shriek which brought the men of the village over, and the stranger ran off before M’Neal knew what had occasioned the alarm.”