Echoes from Elko

A single wry word of Chinook Jargon that says a lot.

Since the sad shooting accident up
the South Fork of the Elk River all
the Kootenay Indians left.  They say
there are too many white men that
don’t kumtuks [understand] and it’s dangerous to
be safe.

— “Echoes from Elko (Remarks by Jim Thistlebeak)”, The Fernie (BC) Mention, December 12, 1914, page 4, column 3

It’s fun for me to find some Jargon in a town my family lived in at the time!