Joe half-dragged Sally over to the table where Bill and John Wall sat grinning. “What’s the big joke?” asked Joe. He plopped Sally down in a chair and continued, “What kind of gentlemen are you? The least you could have done was help me get this young lady in here.”

John apologized to Joe and the girl. However, he reminded Joe that they had already performed their good deed for that week. “After all,” explained John, “we did rescue and bring you home after your accident. And, that was only last night.”

Joe was grateful to Bill and John and announced that he would be buying their drinks and dinner that evening. Everyone was soon eating and drinking. Joe made sure that Sally drank only coffee. That evening Joe found out all about Sally and her kinfolk.

Swamp Sally’s people were part of the Shuswap band, or the Northern Interior Salish, from the Kamloops area. Like the railway workers, they were only visitors to the Tête Jaune Cache area. The territory they now occupied was part of the Northern Carrier Band of Fort George (Prince George). But Sally had been in Tête Jaune for as long as she could remember.

The Summer of 1912 at Tête Jaune Cache had been a busy and adventurous season for Sally. She had worked with the other women in her village to net salmon from the gravel bars of the Fraser River during the month of August. Earlier that summer she had picked up “unusable parts” from the Pat Burns slaughter house, located just across from the Mile 52 town-site. The free meat and salmon were basically their only source of protein for the winter.

The women in her village dried and smoked the meat and fish. Very little hunting for game was done now, as the Shuswap men were off labouring in road-bed gangs of the Grand Trunk Pacific.

The Tête Jaune Cache Shuswap had moved their original village location, near Mile 49, to a new spot between Sand Creek and the McLennan River.

At least now at their present location, Sally’s family was closer to the salmon spawning grounds and the slaughter yards across the river.

In the next episode, Pokes in Pigs, Joe discovers a clever way of smuggling whiskey bottles. Will he pick up any new bootlegging techniques? We’ll find out soon.

llfrazer@telus.net