If it were a party of Americans here, I wished to question them; if not, I intended to make excuses by asking my way to my own quarters.

It was my business to learn the news of Oregon.
I heard women's voices within, and as I knocked the door opened just a trifle on its chain.

I saw appear at the crack the face of the woman whom I had followed.
She was, as I had believed, old and wrinkled, and her face now, seen close, was as mysterious, dark and inscrutable as that of any Indian squaw.

Her hair fell heavy and gray across her forehead, and her eyes were small and dark as those of a native woman.

Yet, as she stood there with the light streaming upon her, I saw something in her face which made me puzzle, ponder and start--and put my foot within the crack of the door.
When she found she could not close the door, she called out in some foreign tongue.