Chapter II: Part 2

Shell Creek, which was full five days' travel ahead, was said to be one of the boundary lines separating the country of the Pawnees from that of the Sioux. Notices stuck up along the road warned us to look out for the Pawnees at Shell Creek. It was their last toll-collecting station. This fact and their difficulty with the Hopkins train put us on our guard. From what we saw of the action of the Indians, there were manifest indications, that they were collecting at Shell Creek. We saw every day on the opposite side of the river, long lines of them journeying towards that point. In the afternoon of the fifth day after our union, we arrived on the plain, through which the creek had cut its way to the Platte River. We made a corral with our wagons, some seventy-five or eighty rods from the creek.

A few small flags of different colors were floating from the top of the bank descending to the creek, indicating that the Indians were there. I called for seventy-five volunteers to go with me to the crossing. I am glad to say that the Colonel promptly stepped forward; and more than the requisite number offered to go. Where the road crosses Shell Creek valley, if it is proper so to call it, it is from fifteen to twenty feet below the general face of the country, the valley not being over four or five rods in width. It is a small stream, but its shallow waters flow over a bed of treacherous quick sand. The earlier immigrants had cut down the nearly perpendicular bank so as to make the descent and ascent practicable, to and from, the narrow valley. They had also, from the nearby timber in the valley of the Platte River, obtained stringers, placed them across the creek, and covered them with heavy split or hewn cottonwood puncheons.

I formed my volunteers in a line, open order, and facing the crossing. In this order we marched quite rapidly towards the creek until we were eight or ten rods away, when an order of double quick was given,--we dashed down to the bank, and found from seventy-five to a hundred Indians, all armed, at different points along the bank and near the crossing. We covered them with our rifles and shotguns. There was an ominous silence for a short time. They soon arose, however, and all but two crossed the creek and went to a bald knoll a short distance below the crossing. One or two started to come up to us, but we waved them off. The puncheons had been removed from the stringers and thrown into an irregular pile on the further side of the creek. Two Indians stood upon the pile. I asked for two young men to go down to replace the puncheons. Quite a number volunteered. I selected one standing near me, and another called Brad. Both were stalwart and muscular. Brad was a great boaster, but a noted exception to Carlyle's rule. He was as courageous as a lion. The puncheons were thick, water-soaked and heavy. One of the two Indians standing upon them departed as Brad and his companion approached; the other, silent and sullen, maintained his position on the pile, and when Brad took hold of the end of a puncheon he walked down to that end, thus compelling Brad to lift him as well as the puncheon. Someone said "hit him, Brad." I thought the order a proper one; so I said nothing. Brad, who was great in a power emanating from the shoulder and culminating in the knuckles of the hand, struck, with all his force, the Indian on the point of the jaw; the Indian fell to the ground a limpid heap, and did not recover until nearly all of the puncheons had been replaced. When he arose his face was covered with blood from either the effect of the blow or his fall. He walked slowly towards the knoll where the other Indians were, and his appearance among them created quite a sensation and uproar. It was manifest that there was no unity of purpose, or action among them. As soon as the bridge was repaired we crossed over with four-fifths of the men; the other one-fifth went back to help bring up the train, and to assist in the crossing if necessary. I left the command with the doctor, and as the evening was fast approaching I selected a camp about one-half of a mile beyond the crossing, where grass, water and wood were plentiful. The first lieutenant superintended the camping. When I returned I found that the doctor had "the lame chief" and two other younger chiefs as prisoners. They had crossed the line marked out by him, and he retained them as hostages. The lame chief was somewhat reconciled to his lot, but the young men were taciturn and sullen. The lame chief knew English and talked it sufficiently well for us to understand him. I told him that we would give them plenty to eat, with blankets upon which they could sleep, and that we would part as friends in the morning. I told him further that if the Indians attacked us that night he and the two young chiefs would be killed. I told him that he could control the Indians, and that we required him to do it. All of this was said to him in a most positive and emphatic manner, and he communicated it to the younger chiefs. I asked him what so many Indians, all armed, had come away from their villages and to the boundary of their country for? He said the Indians had no bad feelings towards the horse-train, but they had come to make the cow-train pay for the killed and wounded in the fight at Loup Fork. He said that they did not expect to find us with the cowtrain. Certain it is, that every circumstance pointed to the conclusion that had not our train been present, the Hopkins train would have been compelled to contribute largely, or would have had another fight more disastrous, perhaps, than the first. The night was made hideous by the almost constant yelling of the Indians. I remained up until eleven, when I retired, worn out and with an acute attack of neuralgic head-ache. After a time I slept or dozed, notwithstanding the uproar. The doctor also had gone to his wagon. The first lieutenant was in command. About three o'clock he came to my wagon, and requested me to get up; he feared, he said, an attack. The Indians, he informed me, were already approaching us. I found that the warriors had left the strip of timber on the river and were within one hundred yards of our picket-line. I went around the camp and found nearly everyone awake and up. I then went with the lame chief and his guard to the picket-line. I told him to tell the Indians, that they must not come any nearer. The chief began to speak immediately and continued to talk for two minutes or more; and while we did not understand what he said, the tumult ceased, and from thence on, comparative quiet prevailed. In the morning we gave our hostages a good breakfast and presented them with a cow brute so lame that it could not travel farther. I saw it killed. An Indian with a strong, and to me almost inflexible bow, threw himself on his back, holding the steel or iron-pointed arrow with both hands against the string of the bow, and with his feet springing it sent the arrow deep into the heart of the animal, which fell at his feet. This was the first exhibition I had ever seen of the power of the bow as a weapon and life-extinguisher. At short range, with a cool nerve, with a full quiver, a person thus armed would be a dangerous foe.

We got an early start the next morning. We bade our hostages good-bye without regret, and entered onto the land of the Sioux with hopeful satisfaction. We journeyed full twenty miles that day, and camped on a treeless plain with good water and plenty of grass, but no wood save buffalo chips. This want of wood was to continue for hundreds of miles. It was amusing at first, to see the ladies handle the buffalo chips. They literaly cooked with their gloves on. But the principle announced by the poet soon asserted itself:

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

I do not mean to say that they embraced this fuel; only that they used it as they would other fuel--simply obeying a law of necessity and enduring it.

This morning we parted from the Hopkins train, got an early start and made a late camp over twenty miles away.

Early in the commencement of our jurney to the sunset land, I organized a hunting party of four good shots, two of whom I was personally acquainted with and knew that they were well qualified for their position; the other two were chosen on the recommendation of their acquaintances and friends. This selection turned out to be not only harmonious, but a fit and proper one. They organized by the election of the doctor and myself as alternate captains, expecting that one of us would accompany them on each day's hunt. The work was exciting, with a dash of danger in it, and was arduous. Heretofore there had been no opportunity for the proof of their skill. This day, having determined from our guide-book where to camp, I accompanied them to the hills. Shortly after noon the hunters came across a small herd of buffalo in a gully where there was a little pool of seepage water, and succeeded in killing two--one a yearling, the other a barren cow. I was not in at the killing, but I succeeded soon after in ending the swift-bounding career of a fine antelope. We cut the meat from the carcass of the two buffalo and placed it in sacks or rather strong saddle-bags made for that purpose. The bones, neck and horns, save tongue, as well as the hide, were left to be more thoroughly cleaned and devoured by wolves, the ever-ready scavengers of the plains. My trophy of this day's hunt, minus the head and neck, was strapped to the saddle of my horse, and thus by her, grudgingly, borne into camp; but she became accustomed to such work, and protested only at the stinging tightness of the cinch. This was our first ration of fresh meat since crossing the Missouri River. The meat was a treat, fat, juicy and tender. Two days after this the hunters, accompanied by the doctor, at an early hour started for the hills. They returned in the early evening, each with an antelope on his saddle. They saw plenty of buffalo, but could not approach them sufficiently near to get an effective shot. The meat of the antelope, while not as rich and juicy as that of the buffalo, is in the spring of the year, when the grass is green, sweet and tender. It is of much finer grain than that of the buffalo; and the animal is more select in his appetite, eating only the finer grass, with a delicate flavoring of the finest sage, which in many cases was quite distinguishable. I remember that not many years ago the choicest beeves were steers fattened on the rich and luxuriant bunch-grass of the hills, which a week or ten days before marketing were driven to and herded in the valleys where the small sage abounds. They ate it not as a matter of first choice, but of necessity. Such beef, to the epicures, was the realization of a long-felt want.

The work of the hunters was strenuous, and as a partial compensation for their longer hours, and the beneficent results of the successful work by them, they were excused from guard-duty in the night. To this all agreed.

On the second day after the doctor's debut as a hunter, I accompanied the hunters to the hills. We did not find game plentiful, but we occasionally caught the glimpse of an antelope bounding away out of range. The day was excessively hot. Late in the afternoon, however, the hunters started a large buffalo bull from the channel of a dry creek, he ran up the channel towards me; and as he attempted to pass me a few rods away, I fired and struck him in the heart, and he staggered, lunged and fell. This was my first buffalo, and I was, of course, elated with my luck. The hunters would probably have killed him had it not been for my fortunate intervention, for they were in close pursuit on the higher plateau on either side, and were fast converging towards him. He could have scarcely run in safety, the gauntlet of four such expert riflemen. As it was, however, the honor was mine. The pelt or robe was large and very fine, but we were compelled to leave it and the stripped bones to be devoured by the waiting wolves. From thence on until we crossed the Rocky Mountains, we had a liberal supply of fresh meat, consisting of antelope, buffalo, a few deer, three elk, one brown bear, and one bighorn Rocky Mountain sheep, or goat.

So far as travel was concerned, each day was but the tiresome repetition of the preceding one, with very slight variations. When we arrived at Fort Laramie we stopped for some three or four hours. We crossed the river and made a friendly visit to the officers of the fort. We found them to be true American soldiers and gentlemen. The commandant told us that he had heard of the Pawnee difficulty, and had sent an officer and a squad of soldiers to enquire into the affair. He was very anxious to hear from us a statement of the whole matter. I gave him as full a statement as I was able to, and both of us were of the opinion that it was precipitated by the want of proper discipline and control of the men in the train. This may not be very flattering to the white men, but it is the truth, notwithstanding.

I am not a military man, but I was not impressed with the idea that Laramie, surrounded as it is by an amphitheatre of commanding hills, was a fit site for a fort. As against an enemy with modern artillery, I thought it to be hopelessly defenceless. As against Indians it possibly might do. But then, I knew nothing of Plevna, similarly situated, and so heroically defended by the Turks against a superior and well-equipped Russian army.

Leaving Fort Laramie, we now entered the Black Hills country. After a two-days' journey in the hills, finding grass, water and wood in great abundance, we concluded to rest for two days for laundry and recuperative purposes. Our horses began to show the effects of the journey, and the want of their accustomed food. No animal has the power of endurance of man, unless it may be the wolf, "whose long gallop," says the poet, "can tire the hounds' deep hate and hunter's fire."

On the first day of our rest I accompanied the hunters into the hills for game. About three miles from camp, on a wooded side-hill, they came across a band of fifteen or more of elk and succeeded in killing three of them. I was not in at the killing, but caught a distant view of the noble antlered monarchs of the forest, as they sped away to deeper and safer retreats in the depths of the woods. As we did not kill for the love of slaughter, but for food, we declared the day's hunt a success, and prepared our meat for transportation to the camp, in the usual manner. I have killed quite a number of elk since that time in the mountains of Oregon, but I have never seen one larger than one of those, although I have seen much larger and finer antlers than adorned the heads of any of them. The purpose of the antlers, in my judgment, is not to furnish the animal a weapon in fight, but as a protection to his shoulders as he dashes through the brush in flight from an enemy or in pursuit of his mate. When he moves swiftly he elevates his nose until his face is nearly in a line with his back; the antlers, extending back on each side of the shoulders, thus affording them protection. The bucks always lead in such flights, and to a certain extent open the way; hence the females have no need, or not so much need, of such protection. Somewhat disappointed with my failure to get a shot at an elk on the preceding day, I again accompanied the hunters. We made a wide circuit through the hills, some of which were covered with timber, while others were bald. That it was a country abounding in game was manifest in the signs appearing everywhere. We saw a few antelope in full flight and out of range; we also startled from his sylvan couch a black-tailed buck, being the first of the deer kind seen in our journey. One of the hunters sent a ball after him as he bounded through the brush and timber, but, unscathed, he dashed on. As the day was fast waning we turned our horses' heads campward, and commenced the ascent of quite a high hill to take an observation of our latitude and longitude, and also to determine the exact location of our camp and the best route to it. The western side of this hill was covered with brush and fallen and dead timber. While we were standing on the top viewing the topography of the surrounding country, a large cinnamon bear, affrighted by our presence, started from his lair, and in all probability his patrimonial jungle, and dashed at a furious speed down through the brush and over the logs and rocks of this steep side-hill. We emptied our rifles at him as he plunged downward at such headlong speed. But one ball struck him and that broke his right shoulder, much diminishing his speed and almost entirely destroying his climbing powers. We soon came upon him at the foot of the hill in a bad humor, but we quickly ended his career. He was in fine condition; his estimated weight was from 275 to 300 pounds. We removed the pelt, with his feet, and took them into camp as a matter of curiosity; we also took the meat into camp, but it was not much relished. The hide as well as most of the meat was given to begging Indians.

At Laramie a man and his wife and one child--a little girl between seven and eight years of age--asked permission to travel with us. The man had started the year before, got as far as Laramie and had remained there during the winter. His team consisted of four yoke of young oxen, well conditioned for the trip. He had a hired man to drive them. He had a band of forty heifers and cows. Many of the cows were giving milk; thinking a little milk in our coffee would give it a home flavor, we readily acceded to the request. We helped him to drive his loose stock and do the milking. When we asked her, by politeness called his better half, for a small quantity of milk, we found that we were dealing with a Shylock. She had milk for sale, but not to give away. We were about to strike when the husband intimated that our canteens were useful. We took the hint, and after that, somehow, our coffee changed its color. To cut this narration short, let me say that while he was six feet tall and well proportioned, he stood still higher in the class of antivertebrates--henpecked nincompoops--than any specimen of the genus homo I have ever known; and she stood higher in her class of imperious virago. How a child, sweet in her disposition, and lovable in all her ways, could be the issue of such a union, was a mystery to us all. Afterwards I had the pleasure of saving the little girl from drowning in the crossing of Port Neuf near Fort Hall. A majority of the company voted to go by way of Fort Hall and to cross the Port Neuf near its junction with the Snake, instead of crossing it higher up, thus keeping continuously on the highlands. I protested, but finally yielded to this almost unanimous desire. I think the agreeable companionship of some of the factors of the company with whom we had become acquainted, at Soda or Steamboat Springs on Bear River, had much to do with this determination. From the Fort, where we were hospitably entertained, to the bluff and road beyond the Port Neuf was about five miles. The water of the Snake and the Port Neuf had but recently overflowed the valley between the two, and left it a miry quicksand morass, almost impossible of passing. It took us three days of hard labor and strenuous efforts to reach the bluffs. The heavily-loaded wagon of the nincompoop and the virago was almost constantly mired. We had little to do with him, but with her it was a constant conflict. At last we got her wagon to the river. He was on the highlands with the loose stock. The river for twenty feet or more was from seven to ten feet in depth. With a true team and a proper wagon this space could be safely passed. Her team, however, consisting of a horse and a mule, when they reached deep water made a lunge, then balked. The wagon filled with water and the current turned it over. She had insisted on driving and on having the little girl with her in the wagon. When it went over quite a number of us young men, who had been working nearly all day in our drawers and undershirts, plunged into the stream, and as we passed over the cover of the sinking wagon seized it and stripped it from its bows. Close beside me the little girl popped up; I seized her, and with a few strokes took her to shore, with no damage done her save a good wetting. It was a question, for a short time, whether the virago would drown the young men who were trying to save her, or they would succeed in their efforts. I went to their assistance and we brought her to the shore, but she needed the doctor's assistance. She had in ballast more water than was necessary, and by a rolling process was forced to give it up. Their team having been safely extricated--the wagon and its contents on shore, and soon transported to highlands, we found among their contents a large demijohn of first class brandy, to all appearances never opened, probably because the Snake country had not been reached; and as the dominant owner of said brandy was suffering from the too free use of water, we all drank to the toast, with a delicate courtesy, for her speedy delivery. Oblivious of the fearful danger of microbes, each tipped the demijohn at an angle and for a duration of time suited to the occasion. This spiritual passage having become historic, we hitched up our teams and journeyed onward to a creek about two miles distant, where we camped for the night. Next morning we bade a sorrowful adieu to the sweet, and much-loved and sprightly daughter of our train and our whilom companions, and resumed our journey down the left bank of the Snake River. This road led us over a desolate and treeless plain of sage-brush and grease-wood. The sun, at times, sent down its rays with scorching power. The alkaline dust, betimes rolled up in suffocating volumes. The pleasures of the chase were at an end. This dreary and waterless plain was not the abode of animal life, save the lizard, the horn toad and the rattlesnake. Game was said to be plentiful in the foothills and mountains, but they were too far away. The few Indians scattered along the river and the far-separated and uncertain tributaries had, I am informed, no organized tribal relation, but were the vagabonds driven off by contiguous tribes. Their subsistance was precarious, consisting of fish, grasshoppers, crickets or black locusts, and an occasional rabbit. But two incidents worthy of narration occurred in our journey down the river. One was a stampede of our horses by the Indians about two o'clock a. m. One of the four men detailed to guard them on that night informed me that he was unwell, and I took his place. The horses were on excellent grass a little over a mile from camp. A short time before sundown we rolled up our blankets and with our arms, departed for our night's work. We all took a careful survey of the surroundings and the horses, and then two of us rolled ourselves up in our blankets to be awakened at one o'clock a. m. Promptly at that time we were called. The watchmen reported that all was well; but the horses seemed a little restless and uneasy, and the watchmen thought that wolves were prowling around in the sage-brush, and although unseen by them, the presence of the wolves was detected by the keener scent and clearer vision of the horses.

The night was star light and clear. The moon, when our watch commenced, was just lifting its pale head above the eastern hills. We made a circuit of the herd and passed among and through them, for some were spanselled and others had long trail ropes about their necks. Finding all things in a satisfactory condition, my companion took his position on the left of the center of the herd, and I a similar position on the right. Scarcely had we got to our position when a small band, or party, of Indians suddenly arose from the sage-brush about midway between us, and, with a wild whoop and flourish of blankets, startled the horses and sent them, with all the speed they were capable of making, towards the distant western hills. I fired a shot at long range in the direction of the perfidious savages, but I am quite certain that it did them no harm. They immediately disappeared, however, in the thick sage-brush, and I saw no more of them until I had succeeded in stopping the horses. I got hold of several trail-ropes, one of which belonged to my favorite riding mare; I quickly mounted her, and with a dash I was soon in front of the affrighted animals. I talked to them; they knew my voice and stopped. The horse looks to his master as his protector. I have seen many proofs of this fact in my lonely wanderings in the hills and mountains, with no companion but my faithful horse. Such a horse always knows where you are; if he does not, he will take your trail and come to you. If in a strange wood, and you get separated from him, he will often whinny; but I am digressing.

After having succeeded in stopping the affrighted animals, I took a careful survey of my desolate surroundings. I saw to my left three Indians standing on a slightly elevated ground, and I raised my rifle to fire. They saw my movement and they quickly dropped to the ground. I sent a bullet as near as I could to the spot; and while I think it did them no injury, yet it was a notice that I was armed, and an admonition not to come within range. I was satisfied that they were unarmed, save with bows and arrows, which, to be effective, required both ambush and a short range; so, although five or six miles from camp, I was fearful of neither.

I saw that the horses, hobbled or spanselled, were very much impeded in their ability to travel, only being able to go by short jumps. Dismounting, I unbuckled some and cut the hobbles of others. About three miles from camp I met a rescuing party, among whom was my guard companion. I was inclined to blame him for not accompanying me in my wild race, but I have long since forgiven him. Such an incident was not uncommon in the early migrations to this coast. The attempts were numerous, but generally not as successful as this one.

The next day, early in the morning, as we were moving slowly along at the foot of a high and bald ridge, whose top was enveloped in fog, we heard coming from the top a shrill voice saying in prolonged accents, "Steal Hoss--God dam!" Some thought it to be the voice of an angel; others said that if the voice was that of an angel, it must have come from a fallen angel, because the language was very improper for one retaining his first estate; while others suggested that it was nothing, but an extract, or echo from my soliloquy, as I dodged through the sage-brush and grease-wood on that awful night in hot pursuit, of our affrighted and fleeing horses. Despite the plausibility of this last suggestion, I adhere to Lord Byron's contention that the anatheme was the nucleus of England's native eloquence; and if so, why not of Indian oratory?

After passing around the point of this angelic ridge, the road diverges to the westward from Snake River and passes over some high, bald ridges separating it from Burnt River.

On the afternoon of the 17th of July, an oppressively hot and sultry day, our train descended from a high and volcanic table land to the narrow valley of Burnt River in Southeastern Oregon. The way down was through a long, narrow and treeless canyon into which the sun poured with focal power. This canyon, and, in fact, Burnt River valley, is the home of the festive rattlesnake. He is of the large yellow bellied species, fierce in his war moods, and deadly when, from his spiral coil battery, "He pours at once his venom and his length."

Impatient with the slow progress we were making, myself and three other young men that night, resolved that in the morning we would dissolve our connection with the train, and hasten, with longer marches and quickened pace, to our journey's end. Accordingly, early the next morning we packed our provisions, blankets and other personal effects on our horses, and, bidding adieu to our companions, shouldered our rifles and, with reliant faith in our ability to protect ourselves, started on. Our course was up the narrow, silent and gloomy valley of Burnt River. The banks of the river were fringed with a stunted growth of cottonwood and poplar. On either side were high and treeless hills of red earth and rocks, the still remaining evidence of the presence of tremendous igneous agencies in the far-distant past, and which, no doubt, gave the river its name. We camped at noon on a small brooklet which came rollicking down from its canyon home until it reached the valley, and then, embosomed in willows and tall rye grass, flowed silently on to the more noisy and pretentious river. A short distance from camp in a sunny glen we discovered an abundance of service berries and black currants, large, luscious and fully ripe. Having tasted no fruit of any kind for over three months, that noonday repast was not only greatly relished by us, but it awakened associations of home and home life. As we feasted we talked of sister, mother and the bright-eyed girl far away. All things enjoyable must have an end.

It was time to move on. On our return to camp we came across a monster rattlesnake, coiled up and defiant in his lonely home. Having heard it said that tobacco was a deadly poison to this species of snake, we concluded to stop long enough to verify or disprove this saying. We cut some long willow switches and split the smaller end, into which we fastened a quantity of strong, fine-cut chewing tobacco, moistened so that the juice would flow freely, and then presented it to his worthy snakeship with our compliments. He struck it three times viciously. We could not induce him to strike it any more. He had got a quantity of the juice and some of the tobacco in his mouth. It manifestly had taken all the viciousness out of him. He was evidently subjugated. He began slowly to uncoil, and as he lay at full length a tremor passed over him and he was seemingly dead; but for fear he might recover we bruised his head, not with our heels, but with stones.

In stating this little incident I have wandered somewhat from the thread of my narrative. I do this for two reasons: First, to show that I am a lover of experimental science; and, secondly, to show that the filthy weed may be put to a good purpose.

Late that afternoon we made our last camp in the dismal valley of Burnt River. The next morning we made an early start, and found ourselves on a high sage-brush plateau just as old Sol was lifting his fiery rim above the eastern horizon. To me an alkaline plain covered with unsightly sage-brush, burnt with fervent heat, destitute of water and animate with no carol of bird, or hum of insect, is the very symbol of desolation; a silent, monotonous and dreary waste, fit only for the habitation of lizards, horned toads, and other reptiles. Such, to a great extent was the prospect before us. We consulted our guide-book and learned that the only water for over forty miles was a well or spring near the road, some twenty miles distant.

We pushed on. The day was intensely hot. Two o'clock came, and three, and four, but no spring. We had, evidently in our headlong eagerness to make distance, overlooked it. The sun went down in a bank of clouds, whose storm-heads loomed above the Blue Mountains, to our left. Darkness came on. The gleam of lightning and the sullen roar of distant thunder warned us that a storm was coming. The fast-ascending clouds soon covered the sky, and the darkness became intense. We called a halt, and decided to stop for the night. We unpacked our horses and turned them loose with trail-ropes fastened to their necks. By the friendly aid of the lightning we were able to spread our blankets amid the sage-brush. I must confess that as I lay that night wrapped in my blankets, with a saddle for my pillow, startled ever and anon by the lightning's fearful glare, and listened to the rolling thunder as it reverberated with many voices through the canyons of the Blue Mountains, a spirit of absolute loneliness came over me. I was homesick. I thought of my father's home, where there was comfort and abundance. I was also troubled with the thought that our horses might hopelessly wander away in that night of storm. But balmy sleep--tired Nature's sweet restorer--soon put an end to these melancholy reflections. I slept soundly despite the storm, and did not awake until the gray streaks of morning streamed up the eastern sky. When fairly awake, I leaped from my blankets, uncovered and examined my rifle, and after buckling on my belt in which were a Colt's navy revolver and hunting knife, without disturbing my companions, I started on a hunt for our horses. I soon found their trail and followed it with quickened speed. I found them about three miles from camp in a beautiful little valley covered with grass, and through which flowed a small streamlet of pure cold water. After quenching my thirst and filling my canteen, I mounted my favorite animal, and rode back to camp, the others following. I arrived at camp before my companions had awakened. I aroused them with a wild whoop, and treated them all from the contents of my canteen. We speedily packed up and hastened onward in search of green fields, and especially running brooks. About eight o'clock we came to a tributary of Powder River. Here we cooked our breakfast, not having eaten anything but hard tack for over twenty-four hours.

We made a late camp in the afternoon of that day on Grand Rounde River. The evening of the next day found us on the west bank of the Umatilla River. These long and forced marches had begun to tell unfavorably on our horses. I was reminded of the declaration that man had better bottom and finer staying qualities than any animal, except the wolf. Enured as we were to hardship and in perfect health, with no surplus flesh, and with muscles hardened by over three thousand miles of travel, mostly on foot, the wolf even, could ill afford to give us percentage in a race that involved staying qualities. Our camp being an excellent one, and grass, wood and water, as well as fish and game, being abundant, we decided to remain for three days to recruit our jaded horses.

While out hunting the next day, I came upon the camp of a white man, about a mile up the valley from our camp. I made bold to appear at the door of his tent, and found a middle-aged and jolly-looking man who received me with open-handed cordiality. With a smile he told me that his name was Kane, that he was the Indian Agent for that portion of Oregon. In answer to his inquiries I told him all I remembered about myself, and he, as a compensation, gave me a brief synopsis of his personal history. The conversation soon turned on Indian habits and customs; the numerical strength of the tribes in the great Columbia basin, their war tendencies and their desire of, and capability for a higher civilization, at least so far as the tribes under his supervision were concerned. He argued that they had already passed from the purely savage state to the pastorial; that they were owners of large bands of horses, had made a commendable start in the acquisition of horned cattle, and were very desirious of increasing their stock. He said that quite a number of individual Indians owned from one hundred to five thousand head of horses, "and to convince you," he said, "that these Indians desire to advance in the line of higher civilization, I may mention the fact that a Cayuse chief, the fortunate owner of over 2,000 head of horses, and has an only and lovely daughter, offers to give 600 head of valuable horses to any respectable white American who will marry his daughter, settle down among them, and teach them agriculture." He gave a glowing description of this maidenly flower, born to blush unseen, and waste her sweetness on the bunch-grass plain. Touched by the inspiration of his eloquence, I inadvertently expressed my desire to see this incomparable princess. The agent responded that he had business with the chief and that he would accompany me on the morrow to his camp, situated about six miles up the valley. Nine o'clock in the morning was fixed for starting. I returned to our camp, rehearsed to my companions the incidents of the day, and took an inventory of my rather limited wardrobe. Be not alarmed, gentle reader; I am not about to tell you what my attire was on that interesting occasion; suffice it to say that it was becoming to an American sovereign.

At the appointed time I was at the agent's camp. Two horses saddled, with ropes around their lower jaw for bridles, were in readiness. I approached the one allotted to me, but as I neared it, it snorted and shied. I inquired if it was gentle. "Perfectly so," was the emphatic answer. An Indian held him, however, as I volted into the saddle. He let go, and we bounded away at a furious speed. At the distance of two miles or more I found him willing to yield to the pressure on his jaw and to slacken his headlong pace. We arrived at the Indian village about 10 a. m. It was stationed on the margin of the river in a beautiful grove of timber. It consisted of a dozen or more conical shaped tents. We rode up to the front of the principal one, dismounted, and hitched our horses by dropping the trail rope to the ground. The chief came to meet us, and his reception of the agent seemed to be very cordial. I was introduced as his friend, and we shook hands and said "Klahowa" to each other. We entered the tent. There was no furniture, so we were seated on a roll of bed-clothing next to the wall. An animated conversation was kept up between the chief and the agent. I did not understand the Indian dialect, nor could I then speak the classic jargon; hence I had plenty of time and opportunity for observation. My eyes rolled around the somewhat contracted royal mansion. I saw there a dumpy female of middle age, with a heavy but knotted and uncombed head of hair silently engaged in ornamenting a new pair of moccasins with steel and glass beads. This could not be the princess?

The agent told me that the chief desired to talk with me about the incoming emigration; I assented, the agent acting as interpreter. This conversation ending, I went out to take a more accurate survey of the village. While standing in front of the chieftain's tent, a young Indian woman, riding astride of a very fine horse, approached the tent. She reined up her steed a few feet in front of me, showed a little astonishment at my presence, and lightly dismounted without any assistance from me. She tarried for a moment to pet her horse, thus giving me an excellent chance for observation. While I can not say that her form was sylph-like and elegant, yet her features were not irregular, nor was her form misshapen. She was of medium height and stood erect. Her head was covered with a luxuriant growth of dark coarse hair, flowing over her shoulders and extending down to her waist. Her hair was neatly combed; around her neck she had several strings of different-colored beads, large and of bogus pearls; she had on a short gown closely fitting her neck and body, and extending to her knees; it was made out of soft buckskin and was tastefully ornamented with beads, and fringed around the bottom; her lower limbs were wrapped in buckskin leggings with fringed stripes at the sides; her feet were covered with a neat pair of moccasins, ornamented with beads. Such was the chieftain's daughter as I then saw her. She dashed by me and entered the tent. I soon after followed. I judged from the long and inquiring stare of the mother, and the quick and abashed look of the daughter, that the agent and chief were talking about me; and I subsequently learned that such was the fact. By invitation of the chief we stayed for dinner. I will not detain you by a description of that repast. After dinner we smoked the pipe of peace and friendship, then bade adieu to the chieftain and rode back to our camp. The next day I went up to the agent's camp and wrote for the "Detroit Free Press" a description of the Umatilla Valley and the surrounding country, stated the number of Indians residing there, their mode of life, their habits and customs, together with their desire for civilization. I stated the generous offer of the Cayuse chief, and closed with a glowing description of the dusky princess. I mailed the letter at The Dalles.

In due time we arrived in the Willamette Valley. Over three months elapsed before I received a copy of The Free Press containing my letter. By a strange perversion the printer had changed the word "cayuse" into "hans." This explained a mystery. Quite a number of letters directed to the chief of the "Hans" Indians, care of the superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon, had been received by him. No one knowing anything about the Hans Indians. These letters were afterwards published in the Oregon papers. I will give from memory a synopsis of two of them. The first was written by a Michigan man, and he was endorsed by Lewis Cass, Henry Ward Beecher and many other noted persons. It was a plain, straight-forward letter and unconditionally accepted the chieftain's offer. He desired to be speedily notified, in order that he might come on to accept his patrimony and open his agricultural school. The other letter was written by a Virginian. He was endorsed by the Senators of that State and by most of its Representatives in Congress. A daguerreotype accompanied the letter. This gallant gentleman stated to the Chief that he would scorn to accept the hand of the daughter unless he could first win her heart. He flattered himself, however, that he would have no difficulty in that matter. The whole tone of the letter was that of a regular masher. I do not know whether these letters ever reached the chief and his fair dusky daughter or not, nor do I know whether he was blessed or cursed with a white son-in-law.

My belief is that the perverseness of that Detroit printer obstructed the civilization of a tribe.

In conclusion, the jolly Indian agent was gathered to his fathers years ago. The bow has fallen from the nerveless grasp of the generous chieftain. The princess may still be alive; if so, and if her eyes by chance should fall upon these lines, she will, no doubt, remember the bashful and ungallant young man who met her in front of her royal father's mansion in the beautiful Umatilla Valley in 1852.

On the morning of the fifth day after our arrival in the beautiful and fertile valley of the Umatilla we resumed our journey. Our first point of destination was The Dalles. There we replenished our nearly exhausted stock of provisions. From thence, our first camp was at the eastern base of the Cascade Mountains. We passed over this rugged and densely-timbered range by the Barlow Route. In addition to the stillness of the solemn and continuous woods, and the majestic splendor of the amphitheatre of surrounding mountains, there is the steep descent at once of Laurel Hill from a summit plateau to the valley of the Sandy River below. While it involves some sacrifice of truth to call this the descent of a hill, it requires a greater poetic imagination, from the few stunted Madronas, not laurels, standing on the western rim, of this summit table-land, to call the place Laurel Hill. I saw wagons with their household goods and gods descend this so-called hill. None but pioneers on whose brow and face sunshine and storm had stamped their heraldic honors, who had swam cold and turbulent mountain streams, had passed down steep, rocky and dangerous canyons, and had crossed treacherous streams of quicksand, would ever have attempted this descent. To such seasoned veterans, impossibilities had a constantly diminishing radius. With a steady yoke of oxen--or a true and biddable span of horses--with a long and strong rope fastened to the hind axle-tree of the wagon and wound around some contiguous tree and gradually loosened, the wagons were safely let down these rough and almost perpendicular descents. My information is that no wagons pass over this road now. It answers for a bridle-path and pack-trail, and no more. Old Mount Hood, along whose southern base we passed, stood forth in her imperial grandeur. The waters of the Columbia wash her northern base and the southern base of Mount Adams, her sister peak. A huge rock-ribbed canyon, at the bottom of which rolls the Oregon, separates the two.

An interesting Indian tradition connected with these mountains has a narrow yet substantial footing in fact, but a broader, more airy and more poetic foundation in myth. It runs thus:

Prior to the tremendous conflict and convulsions mentioned herein, the waters of the Columbia and of its many tributaries were confined in the great basin east of the Cascade Mountains. They had no outlet to the ocean. Mount Hood and Mount Adams had for ages been friends; but in process of time they became estranged. That estrangement deepened in intensity until it culminated in a tremendous conflict. They hurled giant boulders at each other. From their tops they sent against one another huge and flaming volumes of fire and molten lava. In their herculean and supreme efforts for victory they tore asunder the mountains and let the long-accumulated waters of the upper basin rush downward to the ocean. Thus, was their separation made final and irrevocable.

It is not in the line of this narrative to marshal the reasons for, or against the probability, or improbability, of Indian legends. If I should depart from this rule in this instance, I would say that the similarity of the rocks on both sides of the great Columbia River gorge; the presence of submarine shells embedded in the great eastern basin, as well as the formation of its converging ridges, and the character of its soil, lend a certain tinge of verification to a portion of this legend. The other portion may be taken as a poetic description of volcanic action, with an attendant earthquake or seismic convulsion of great intensity, and of tremendous force.

From this speculation, let us return to more solid ground. There are two rivers heading near the same point, in the marshes and the highest tableland of the Cascade Mountains. The waters of the one, flow eastward and find the Columbia by a tortuous course east of the mountains; the waters of the other, flow westward and empty in the Columbia above the mouth of the Willamette. The Barlow Road is located on the northern side of this depression, or break in the mountains. Let this brief, and imperfect geographic statement serve as an introduction to the following incident:

Late in the fall of 1847 a large ox-train, with many loose cattle, attempted the ascent of the mountains by the eastern river, but were finally blockaded by the constantly-increasing depth of snow. There were many women and children, as well as stalwart men, in the train. The situation was perilous, threatening great suffering, and the possibility of starvation; hence, two men were deputed to cross the intervening snow-fields to the Willamette Valley for assistance. R. and B. were the men chosen for the difficult task; and with both of them I subsequently became well acquainted. Equipped with snow-shoes, they successfully passed over the summit's ridges to the desolate base of old Mt. Hood. Here they were enveloped in a dense fog--that most fearful of all calamities to a man in unknown woods, or mountains. Even to the experienced hunter or trapper, familiar with the topography of a mountain range, or a dense forest, the coming-in or settling-down of a fog envelopment, is viewed with apprehension, and alarm. A fog obliterates all the landmarks. Darkness has different shades of blackness;--the depth before you has an intensified blackness; the shadow of a mountain peak makes its huge column, or wooded side still darker. R. and B. became bewildered in the continuous fog. Their provisions were exhausted, and they were subsisting on snails. R. was six feet and well proportioned--brawny and enured to toil; B. was smaller and of a more delicate constitution. R. was a pronounced skeptic; B. was a man of faith and inclined to look for safety to a higher power when immediate danger was impending: hence, while R. was eagerly hunting for food, B. was engaged in prayer. One day, deep down under the snow, R. found the slimy trail of a snail; it led directly under B.'s knee. R. pushed B. aside, saying: "Get out of my way--I am nearly frantic for that snail." The game was soon captured, and R. generously divided it with his starving companion. At the conclusion of their scanty feast, B. said to R.: "You are much stronger than I am, and you will probably survive me: now, if I die, what will you do with me?" "Eat you, sir: eat you!" was the emphatic reply. B., in his subsequent narration of the incident, said that the idea was so abhorrent to him that it nerved him up until their escape was made. The families were rescued, and they came down the Columbia River to the Willamette Valley, while most of the stock was left on good pasturage east of the mountains. R. and B. have long since been gathered to their fathers. Their trials, difficulties and dangers are over. May they rest in peace!