peace has reigned in this part of the county of San Francisco--for these
lonely islets are a part of the same county with the metropolis of the
Pacific.

[Illustration: INDIAN GIRLS AND CANOE, PUGET SOUND.]




CHAPTER XIII.

THE COLUMBIA RIVER AND PUGET SOUND--HINTS TO TOURISTS.


In less than forty-eight hours after you leave San Francisco you find
yourself crossing the bar which lies at the mouth of the Columbia River,
and laughing, perhaps, over the oft-told local tale of how a captain,
new to this region, lying off and on with his vessel, and impatiently
signaling for a pilot, was temporarily comforted by a passenger, an old
Californian, who "wondered why Jim over there couldn't take her safe over
the bar."

"Do you think he knows the soundings well enough?" asked the anxious
skipper; and was answered,

"I don't know about that, captain; but he's been taking all sorts of
things 'straight' over the bar for about twenty years, to _my_ knowledge,
and I should think he might manage the brig."

The voyage from San Francisco is almost all the way in sight of land; and