Chapter IV: Part 4

We already here began to suffer from the loss of appetite, which was to us such a difficulty throughout the entire trip. Even the four crackers and two ounces of dried beef, which was our daily limit, we found ourselves unable to master, and yet so much was necessary to keep up our strength. I have never been able to settle in my mind whether this was due to the sameness of the food or the great fatigue we underwent.

The third morning we made an early start, and followed up the stream in almost a due east direction all day until about five o'clock, when the doctor broke down, having been unable to eat anything during the day. With considerable cramming I managed to dispose of the most of my rations. We kept the north side of the river, and had no streams to cross; in fact, there did not appear to be any streams on either side putting into the river. The valley seemed several miles in width, densely timbered, and the undergrowth a complete thicket. Not more than ten miles were made by us. Just before we stopped for the night, we passed through a patch of dead timber of perhaps 100 acres, with an abundance of blackberries. Opposite our camp, on the south side of the river, there was the appearance of quite a tributary coming in from the southeast.

We did not get started until about eleven o'clock on the fourth morning. After cutting up a deer which Wah-pow-e-ty brought in early in the morning, we dried quite a quantity of it by the fire. As we anticipated, it proved of much assistance, for we already saw that six days would be a very short time in which to make the trip. By night we reached a muddy tributary coming in from the north, and evidently having its source in the melting snows of Rainier. The summit of the mountain was visible from our camp, and seemed close at hand; but night set in with promise of bad weather. The valley had become quite narrow. Our camp was at the foot of a mountain spur several thousand feet high, and the river close at hand. The gloomy forest, the wild mountain scenery, the roaring of the river, and the dark overhanging clouds, with the peculiar melancholy sighing which the wind makes through a fir forest, gave to our camp at this point an awful grandeur.

On the fifth morning the clouds were so threatening, and came down so low on the surrounding mountains, that we were at a loss what course to pursue--whether to follow up the main stream or the tributary at our camp, which evidently came from the nearest snow. We finally followed the main stream, which very soon turned in toward the mountain, the valley growing narrower, the torrent more and more rapid, and our progress slower and slower, especially when we were compelled to take to the timber. We often crossed the torrent, of which the water was intensely cold, in order to avoid the obstructions of the forest. Sometimes, however, the stream was impassable, and then we often became so entangled in the thickets as almost to despair of farther advance. Early in the evening we reached the foot of an immense glacier and camped. For several miles before camping the bed of the stream was paved with white granite bowlders, and the mountain gorge became narrower and narrower. The walls were in many places perpendicular precipices, thousands of feet high, their summits hid in the clouds. Vast piles of snow were to be seen along the stream--the remains of avalanches--for earth, trees, and rocks were intermingled with the snow.

As it was near night we camped, thinking it best to begin the ascent in the early morning; besides, the weather promised to become worse. The foliage of the pine-trees here was very dense, and on such a cloudy day it was dark as night in the forest. The limbs of the trees drooped upon the ground, a disposition evidently given to them by the snow, which must be late in disappearing in this region.

We followed thus far the main branch of the Nesqually, and here it emerged from an icy cavern at the foot of an immense glacier. The ice itself was of a dark-blue tinge. The water was white, and whenever I waded the torrent my shoes filled with gravel and sand. The walls of this immense mountain gorge were white granite, and, just where the glacier terminated, the immense vein of granite that was visible on both sides seemed to form a narrow throat to the great ravine, which is much wider both above and below. The water seems to derive its color from the disintegration of this granite.[18]

We made our camp under a pine of dense foliage, whose limbs at the outer end drooped near the ground. We made our cup of tea, and found the water boil at 202° Fahrenheit. Night set in with a drizzling rain, and a more solitary, gloomy picture than we presented at that camp it is impossible to conceive. Tired, hungry, dirty, clothes all in rags--the effects of our struggles with the brush--we were not the least happy; the solitude was oppressive. The entire party, except myself, dropped down and did not move unless obliged to. I went up to the foot of the glacier, and explored a little before night set in. I also tried to make a sketch of the view looking up the glacier; but I have never looked at it since without being forcibly reminded what a failure it is as a sketch.

On the morning of the sixth day we set out again up the glacier. A drizzling rain prevailed through the night, and continued this morning. We had a little trouble in getting upon the glacier, as it terminated everywhere in steep faces that were very difficult to climb. Once up, we did not meet with any obstructions or interruptions for several hours, although the slippery surface of the glacier, which formed inclined planes of about twenty degrees, made it very fatiguing with our packs. About noon the weather thickened; snow, sleet, and rain prevailed, and strong winds, blowing hither and thither, almost blinded us. The surface of the glacier, becoming steeper, began to be intersected by immense crevasses crossing our path, often compelling us to travel several hundred yards to gain a few feet. We finally resolved to find a camp. But getting off the glacier was no easy task. We found that the face of the lateral moraine was almost perpendicular, and composed of loose stones, sand, and gravel, furnishing a very uncertain foothold, besides being about fifty feet high. Wah-pow-e-ty and I finally succeeded in getting up, and with the aid of the rope we assisted our companions to do the same. When we reached the top we were a little surprised to find that we had to go down-hill again to reach the mountain side. Here a few stunted pines furnished us fuel and shelter, and we rested for the remainder of the day. I explored a little in the evening by ascending the ridge from the glacier, and discovered that it would be much the best route to pursue in ascending to the summit.

When night set in, the solitude of our camp was very oppressive. We were near the limit of perpetual snow. The water for our tea we obtained from the melting of the ice near by. The atmosphere was very different from what it was below, and singularly clear when not obstructed by fog, rain, or snow. There were no familiar objects to enable one to estimate distance. When I caught a glimpse of the top of Rainier through the clouds, I felt certain that we could reach it in three hours. The only living things to be seen were some animals, with regard to which we still labor under an error. These little creatures would make their appearance on the side of the mountain in sight of our camp, and feed upon herbage that grew on the soil where the snow left it bare. The moment anyone stirred from camp, a sound between a whistle and scream would break unexpectedly and from some unknown quarter, and immediately all the animals that were in sight would vanish in the earth. Upon visiting the spot where they disappeared, we would find a burrow which was evidently the creatures' home. Everywhere round the entrance we found great numbers of tracks, such as a lamb or kid would make. The animals that we saw were about the size of kids, and grazed and moved about so much like them, that, taken in connection with the tracks we saw, we jumped at once to the conclusion that they were mountain sheep, of which we all had heard a great deal, but none of our party had ever seen any. My report of these animals, which was published in the _Washington Republican_ on our return, was severely ridiculed by some of the naturalists who were hunting for undescribed insects and animals in that country at the time. We are still at a loss to understand the habits of the creatures, and to reconcile the split hoofs which the tracks indicated with their burrow in the earth.[19]

On the following morning--the seventh day from our camp on the Mishawl--the sky showed signs of clear weather, and we began the ascent of the main peak. Until about noon we were enveloped in clouds, and only occasionally did we get a glimpse of the peak. Soon after midday we reached suddenly a colder atmosphere, and found ourselves all at once above the clouds, which were spread out smooth and even as a sea, above which appeared the snowy peaks of St. Helens, Mount Adams, and Mount Hood, looking like pyramidal icebergs above an ocean. At first we could not see down through the clouds into the valleys. Above, the atmosphere was singularly clear, and the reflection of the sun upon the snow very powerful. The summit of Rainier seemed very close at hand.

About two o'clock in the afternoon the clouds rolled away like a scroll; in a very short time they had disappeared, and the Cascade Range lay before us in all its greatness. The view was too grand and extensive to be taken in at once, or in the short time we had to observe. The entire scene, with few exceptions, was covered with forests, with here and there barren rocky peaks that rose up out of the ridges; now and then a mountain lake, much more blue than the sky, and the Nesqually, winding like a thread of silver through the dark forests. From the foot of the glacier for several miles the bed of the river was very white, from the granite bowlders that covered the bed of the stream. The water, too, was of a decidedly chalkier color near its source.

We had no time, however, to study the beauties that lay before us. We had already discovered that there was no telling from appearances how far we had to go. The travel was very difficult; the surface of the snow was porous in some places, and at each step we sunk to our knees. Carroll and the Indian gave out early in the afternoon, and returned to camp. The doctor began to lag behind. Dogue stuck close to me. Between four and five o'clock we reached a very difficult point. It proved to be the crest of the mountain, where the comparatively smooth surface was much broken up, and inaccessible pinnacles of ice and deep crevasses interrupted our progress. It was not only difficult to go ahead, but exceedingly dangerous; a false step, or the loss of a foot-hold, would have been certain destruction. Dogue was evidently alarmed, for every time that I was unable to proceed, and turned back to find another passage, he would say, "_I guess, Lieutenant, we petter go pack._"

Finally we reached what may be called the top, for although there were points higher yet,[20] the mountain spread out comparatively flat, and it was much easier to get along. The soldier threw himself down exhausted, and said he could go no farther. The doctor was not in sight. I went on to explore by myself, but I returned in a quarter of an hour without my hat, fully satisfied that nothing more could be done. It was after six o'clock, the air was very cold, and the wind blew fiercely, so that in a second my hat which it carried away was far beyond recovery. The ice was forming in my canteen, and to stay on the mountain at such a temperature was to freeze to death, for we brought no blankets with us, and we could not delay, as it would be impossible to return along the crest of the mountain after dark. When I returned to where I had left the soldier, I found the doctor there also, and after a short consultation we decided to return.

Returning was far easier and more rapid than going. The snow was much harder and firmer, and we passed over in three hours, coming down, what required ten in going up. We were greatly fatigued by the day's toil, and the descent was not accomplished without an occasional rest of our weary limbs. In one place the snow was crusted over, and for a short distance the mountain was very steep, and required the skillful use of the stick to prevent our going much faster than we desired. The soldier lost his footing, and rolled helplessly to the foot of the declivity, thirty or forty yards distant, and his face bore the traces of the scratching for many a day after, as if he had been through a bramble-bush.

We found the Indian and Carroll in the camp. The latter had a long story to tell of his wanderings to find camp, and both stated that the fatigue was too much for them. There was no complaint on the part of any of us about the rarity of the atmosphere. The doctor attributed to this cause the fact that he could not go but a few yards at a time, near the summit, without resting; but I am inclined to think this was due to our exhaustion. My breathing did not seem to be in the least affected.

We were much disappointed not to have had more time to explore the summit of the mountain. We had, however, demonstrated the feasibility of making the ascent. Had we started at dawn of day we should have had plenty of time for the journey. From what I saw I should say the mountain top was a ridge perhaps two miles in length and nearly half a mile in width, with an angle about half-way, and depressions between the angle and each end of the ridge which give to the summit the appearance of three small peaks as seen from the east or west. When viewed from north or south, a rounded summit is all that can be seen; while viewed from positions between the cardinal points of the compass, the mountain generally has the appearance of two peaks.

The night was very cold and clear after our return. We had some idea of making another ascent; but an investigation into the state of our provisions, together with the condition of the party generally, determined us to begin our return on the morning of the eighth day. The two soldiers had eaten all their bread but one cracker each. The doctor and I had enough left, so that by a redistribution we had four crackers each, with which to return over a space that had required seven days of travel coming. We, of course, expected to be a shorter time getting back; but let it be ever so short, our prospect for something to eat was proportionately much more limited. We had more meat than bread, thanks to the deer the Indian had killed, and we depended greatly on his killing more game for us going back: but this dependence, too, was cut off; the Indian was snow-blind, and needed our help to guide him. His groans disturbed us during the night, and what was our astonishment in the morning to find his eyelids closed with inflammation, and so swollen that he looked as if he had been in a free fight and got the worst of it. He could not have told a deer from a stump the length of his little old rifle.

Our camp was about 1,000 or 1,500 feet below the last visible shrub; water boiled at 199°, and, according to an approximate scale we had with us, this indicated an elevation of 7,000 feet. We estimated the highest peak to be over 12,000 feet high. I greatly regretted not being able to get the boiling-point on the top, but it was impossible to have had a fire in such a wind as prevailed round the summit.

As we returned we had more leisure to examine and clearer weather to see the glacier than we had coming up. There was no medial moraine; but an icy ridge parallel to the lateral moraines, and about midway between them, extending as far as we ascended the glacier. The lateral moraines were not continuous, but were interrupted by the walls of the spurs where they projected into the glacier; between these points the lateral moraines existed. The glacier sloped away from the ridge to the moraines, more or less sharply, and it was no easy matter to get off the ice, owing to the steepness of the moraine. The ice melted by reflection from the face of the moraine, and formed a difficult crevasse between it and the glacier. Bowlders of every shape and size were scattered over the face of the glacier. Large ones were propped up on pinnacles of ice; these were evidently too thick for the sun to heat through. The small bowlders were sunk more or less deeply, and surrounded by water in the hot sun; but they evidently froze fast again at night.

The noise produced by the glacier was startling and strange. One might suppose the mountain was breaking loose, particularly at night. Although, so far as stillness was concerned, there was no difference between day and night, at night the noise seemed more terrible. It was a fearful crashing and grinding that was going on, where the granite was powdered that whitened the river below, and where the bowlders were polished and partially rounded.

The great stillness and solitude were also very oppressive; no familiar sounds; nothing except the whistle of the animal before mentioned and the noise of the glacier's motion was to be heard, and if these had not occurred at intervals the solitude would have been still more oppressive. We were glad to get down again to the Nesqually, where we could hear its roar and see its rushing waters. The other members of the party were so tired and worn, however, that they seemed to observe but little, and as we were now on our homeward way, their thoughts were set only on our camp on the Mishawl, with its provisions and promise of rest.

The first day we passed two of the camps we had made coming up, and reached a point where we remembered to have seen a great quantity of blackberries. It was quite dark by the time we reached the little spot of dead timber--which seems to be the favorite haunt of the creeping bramble in this country--and to gather our supper of berries we built a fire at the foot of a large dead tree. Speedily the flames were climbing to the top of the withered branches, and casting a cheerful light for a hundred yards round. But what we found very convenient for gathering berries proved to be a great annoyance when we wanted to sleep. During the night we were constantly moving our place of rest, at first on account of the falling embers, and finally for fear of the tree itself.

Blackberries are refreshing so far as the palate is concerned; but they are not very nourishing. We took our breakfast on them, and continued down the Nesqually from six in the morning until six in the evening, traveling slowly because of the difficult undergrowth and our worn-out and exhausted condition. We passed another of our camps, and finally stopped at what evidently had been an Indian camp. The cedar bark, always to be found in such places, we anticipated would make a shelter for us in case of rain, which the clouds promised us.

No rain fell, however, and we resumed our march, continuing down the river five or six miles farther than where we first struck it, to a point where the hills came close up and overhung the water. There we camped, expecting that an easy march on the morrow would enable us to reach our camp on the Mishawl. We ate our last morsel, and the next morning I was awakened by the conversation of the two soldiers. They were evidently discussing the subject of hunger, for the Irishman said: "I've often seen the squaws coming about the cook-house picking the pitaties out of the slop-barrel, an' I thought it was awful; but I giss I'd do it mesilf this mornin'."

The morning of the eleventh day we left the Nesqually to cross over to the Mishawl, and traveled on the mountain all day, until we reached the stream at night completely exhausted. We should have stopped sooner than we did, but we were almost perishing with thirst, not having had any water since we left the Nesqually in the morning. What we took along in our canteens was exhausted in the early part of the day. We were not more than two miles from the camp in the prairie, and notwithstanding that we had had nothing to eat all day, except a few berries we had picked by the way, we were so exhausted that we lay down to sleep as soon as we had quenched our thirst.

We started up-stream the next morning, thinking we had reached the Mishawl below our camp; but soon discovering our mistake, we turned down. At this point the Irishman's heart sunk within him, he was so exhausted. Thinking we were lost, he wanted to lie down in the stream and "drownd" himself. He was assured that we should soon be in camp, and we arrived there very soon after, before the men left in charge of the horses were up.

Our first thought was of something to eat. I cautioned all about eating much at first; but from subsequent results am inclined to think my advice was not heeded. I contented myself with a half cracker, a little butter, and weak coffee; and an hour after, when I began to feel the beneficial effects of what I had eaten, I took a little more substantial meal, but refrained from eating heartily.

After a short rest we caught our horses, and the doctor and I rode into Steilacoom, where we arrived after a hard ride late in the afternoon. As we approached the post, we met on the road a number of the inhabitants with whom we were well acquainted, and who did not recognize us. Nor were we surprised when we got a glimpse of our faces in a glass. Haggard and sunburnt, nearly every familiar feature had disappeared. Since the loss of my hat, my head-dress was the sleeve of a red flannel shirt, tied into a knot at the elbow, with the point at the arm-pit for a visor. Our clothes were in rags; one of the doctor's pantaloon-legs had entirely disappeared, and he had improvised a substitute out of a coffee-sack. In our generally dilapidated condition none of our acquaintances recognized us until we got to the post. We passed for Indians until we arrived there, where we were received by the officers with a shout at our ludicrous appearance. They were all sitting under the oak-trees in front of quarters, discussing what had probably become of us, and proposing means for our rescue, when we came up.

I felt the effects of the trip for many days, and did not recover my natural condition for some weeks. The doctor and I went to the village next morning, where the people were startled at our emaciated appearance. We found that the doctor had lost twenty-one pounds in weight in fourteen days, and I had lost fourteen pounds in the same time. The doctor, while we were in the village, was taken with violent pains in his stomach, and returned to his post quite sick. He did not recover his health again for three months.

The two soldiers went into the hospital immediately on their return, and I learned that for the remainder of their service they were in the hospital nearly all the time. Four or five years after, Carroll applied to me for a certificate on which to file an application for a pension, stating that he had not been well since his trip to the mountain. The Indian had an attack of gastritis, and barely escaped with his life after a protracted sickness. I attribute my own escape from a lingering illness to the precautions I took in eating when satisfying the first cravings of hunger, on our return to camp.

We are not likely to have any competitors in this attempt to explore the summit of Mount Rainier. Packwood and McAllister, two citizens of Pierce County, Washington Territory, explored up the Nesqually, and crossed over to the head of the Cowlitz River, and thence by what was called Cowlitz Pass (since called Packwood Pass), to the east side of the mountains, searching for a trail to the mining regions of the upper Columbia. More recently, surveyors in the employ of the Pacific Railroad Company have been surveying through the same route for a railway passage.

When the locomotive is heard in that region some day, when American enterprise has established an ice-cream saloon at the foot of the glacier, and sherry-cobblers may be had at twenty-five cents half-way up to the top of the mountain, attempts to ascend that magnificent snow-peak will be quite frequent. But many a long year will pass away before roads are sufficiently good to induce any one to do what we did in the summer of 1857.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] His name is honored in Wapowety Cleaver overlooking the Kautz Glacier.

[18] I have no doubt that the south branch of the Nachess, which flows to the east into the Columbia, and that the Puyallup and White rivers, which flow west into Puget Sound, have similar sources in glaciers, from the fact that in July they are all of a similar character with the Nesqually, muddy, white torrents, at a time when little rain has fallen for months.--Kautz.

[19] The burrow was made by the marmot and the split-hoof tracks in the loose earth were made by mountain goats.

[20] He here gives evidence that he had not reached the summit.

VI. FIRST SUCCESSFUL ASCENT, 1870

BY GENERAL HAZARD STEVENS

General Hazard Stevens was born at Newport, Rhode Island, on
June 9, 1842. His father was Major General Isaac I. Stevens,
and his mother, Margaret (Hazard) Stevens, was a
granddaughter of Colonel Daniel Lyman of the Revolution. In
1854 and 1855, while the son was only thirteen years of age,
he accompanied his father, then the first governor of
Washington Territory, on treaty-making expeditions among the
Indian tribes. Later he accompanied his father into the Union
Army as an officer on his father's staff. He was severely
wounded in the same battle where his father was killed while
leading the charge at Chantilly, September 1, 1862.

Hazard Stevens continued in the army, and at the end of the
war he was mustered out as a brigadier general of volunteers.
He then returned to Washington Territory and went to work to
support his mother and sisters. On August 17, 1870, he and P.
B. Van Trump made the first successful ascent of Mount
Rainier.

In 1874, he followed the other members of the family back to
Boston where he remained until his mother's death, a few
months ago. He then returned to Puget Sound, and is now a
successful farmer near Olympia.

His companion on the ascent, P. B. Van Trump, remained in
Washington. For a number of years he was a ranger at Indian
Henry's Hunting Ground in the Mount Rainier National Park.
There he was a quaint and attractive figure to all visitors.
In 1915, he returned East to live among kinsfolk in New York
State.

The names of both Stevens and Van Trump have been generously
bestowed upon glaciers, creeks, ridges, and cañons within the
Mount Rainier National Park.

General Stevens prefers to call the mountain Takhoma. The
full account of the ascent was published by him under the
title of "The Ascent of Mount Takhoma" in the Atlantic
Monthly for November, 1876. It is here reproduced by
permission of the editor of that magazine.

Mr. Van Trump made several ascents after that first one, and
in 1905 General Stevens also made a second ascent. He
searched in vain for the relics he had deposited at the
summit thirty-five years earlier. The rocks that were bare in
1870 were under snow and ice in 1905.

When Vancouver, in 1792, penetrated the Straits of Fuca and explored the unknown waters of the Mediterranean of the Pacific, wherever he sailed, from the Gulf of Georgia to the farthest inlet of Puget Sound, he beheld the lofty, snow-clad barrier range of the Cascades stretching north and south and bounding the eastern horizon. Towering at twice the altitude of all others, at intervals of a hundred miles there loomed up above the range three majestic, snowy peaks that

"Like giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land."

In the matter-of-fact spirit of a British sailor of his time, he named these sublime monuments of nature in honor of three lords of the English admiralty, Hood, Rainier, and Baker. Of these Rainier is the central, situated about half-way between the Columbia River and the line of British Columbia, and is by far the loftiest and largest. Its altitude is 14,444 feet, while Hood is 11,025 feet, and Baker is 10,810 feet high. The others, too, are single cones, while Rainier, or Takhoma,[21] is an immense mountain-mass with three distinct peaks, an eastern, a northern, and a southern; the two last extending out and up from the main central dome, from the summit of which they stand over a mile distant, while they are nearly two miles apart from each other.

Takhoma overlooks Puget Sound from Olympia to Victoria, one hundred and sixty miles. Its snow-clad dome is visible from Portland on the Willamette, one hundred and twenty miles south, and from the table-land of Walla Walla, one hundred and fifty miles east. A region two hundred and fifty miles across, including nearly all of Washington Territory, part of Oregon, and part of Idaho, is commanded in one field of vision by this colossus among mountains.

Takhoma had never been ascended. It was a virgin peak. The superstitious fears and traditions of the Indians, as well as the dangers of the ascent, had prevented their attempting to reach the summit, and the failure of a gallant and energetic officer, whose courage and hardihood were abundantly shown during the rebellion, had in general estimation proved it insurmountable.

For two years I had resolved to ascend Takhoma, but both seasons the dense smoke overspreading the whole country had prevented the attempt. Mr. Philomon Beecher Van Trump, humorous, generous, whole-souled, with endurance and experience withal, for he had roughed it in the mines, and a poetic appreciation of the picturesque and the sublime, was equally eager to scale the summit. Mr. Edward T. Coleman, an English gentleman of Victoria, a landscape artist and an Alpine tourist, whose reputed experience in Switzerland had raised a high opinion of his ability above the snow-line, completed the party.

Olympia, the capital of Washington Territory, is a beautiful, maple-embowered town of some two thousand inhabitants, situated at the southernmost extremity of Puget Sound, and west of Takhoma, distant in an air line seventy-five miles. The intervening country is covered with dense fir forests, almost impenetrable to the midday sun, and obstructed with fallen trees, upturned roots and stumps, and a perfect jungle of undergrowth, through which the most energetic traveler can accomplish but eight or nine miles a day. It was advisible to gain the nearest possible point by some trail, before plunging into the unbroken forest. The Nisqually River, which rises on the southern and western slopes of Takhoma, and empties into the sound a few miles north of Olympia, offered the most direct and natural approach. Ten years before, moreover, a few enterprising settlers had blazed out a trail across the Cascade Range, which followed the Nisqually nearly up to its source, thence deflected south to the Cowlitz River, and pursued this stream in a northeastern course to the summit of the range, thus turning the great mountain by a wide circuit. The best-informed mountain men represented the approaches on the south and southeast as by far the most favorable. The Nisqually-Cowlitz trail, then, seemed much the best, for the Nisqually, heading in the south and southwest slopes, and the Cowlitz, in the southeastern, afforded two lines of approach, by either of which the distance to the mountain, after leaving the trail, could not exceed thirty miles.

One August afternoon, Van Trump and I drove out to Yelm Prairie, thirty miles east of Olympia, and on the Nisqually River. We dashed rapidly on over a smooth, hard, level road, traversing wide reaches of prairie, passing under open groves of oaks and firs, and plunging through masses of black, dense forest in ever-changing variety. The moon had risen as we emerged upon Yelm Prairie; Takhoma, bathed in cold, white, spectral light from summit to base, appeared startlingly near and distinct. Our admiration was not so noisy as usual. Perhaps a little of dread mingled with it. In another hour we drove nearly across the plain and turned into a lane which conducted us up a beautiful rising plateau, crowned with a noble grove of oaks and overlooking the whole prairie. A comfortable, roomy house with a wide porch nestled among the trees, and its hospitable owner, Mr. James Longmire, appeared at the door and bade us enter.

The next morning we applied to Mr. Longmire for a guide, and for his advice as to our proposed trip. He was one of the few who marked out the Nisqually-Cowlitz trail years ago. He had explored the mountains about Takhoma as thoroughly, perhaps, as any other white man. One of the earliest settlers, quiet, self-reliant, sensible, and kindly, a better counselor than he could not have been found. The trail, he said, had not been traveled for four years, and was entirely illegible to eyes not well versed in woodcraft, and it would be folly for any one to attempt to follow it who was not thoroughly acquainted with the country. He could not leave his harvest, and moreover in three weeks he was to cross the mountains for a drove of cattle. His wife, too, quietly discouraged his going. She described his appearance on his return from previous mountain trips, looking as haggard and thin as though he had just risen from a sick-bed. She threw out effective little sketches of toil, discomfort, and hardship incident to mountain travel, and dwelt upon the hard fare. The bountiful country breakfast heaped before us, the rich cream, fresh butter and eggs, snowy, melting biscuits, and broiled chicken, with rich, white gravy, heightened the effect of her words.

But at length, when it appeared that no one else who knew the trail could be found, Mr. Longmire yielded to our persuasions, and consented to conduct us as far as the trail led, and to procure an Indian guide before leaving us to our own resources. As soon as we returned home we went with Mr. Coleman to his room to see a few indispensable equipments he had provided, in order that we might procure similar ones. The floor was literally covered with his traps, and he exhibited them one by one, expatiating upon their various uses. There was his ground-sheet, a large gum blanket equally serviceable to Mr. Coleman as a tent in camp and a bathtub at the hotel. There was a strong rope to which we were all to be tied when climbing the snow-fields, so that if one fell into a chasm the others could hold him up. The "creepers" were a clumsy, heavy arrangement of iron spikes made to fasten on the foot with chains and straps, in order to prevent slipping on the ice. He had an ice-axe for cutting steps, a spirit-lamp for making tea on the mountains, green goggles for snow-blindness, deer's fat for the face, Alpine staffs, needles and thread, twine, tacks, screws, screwdriver, gimlet, file, several medical prescriptions, two boards for pressing flowers, sketching materials, and in fact every article that Mr. Coleman in his extensive reading had found used or recommended by travelers. Every one of these he regarded as indispensable. The Alpine staff was, he declared, most important of all, a great assistance in traveling through the woods as well as on the ice; and he illustrated on his hands and knees how to cross a crevasse in the ice on two staffs. This interview naturally brought to mind the characteristic incident related of Packwood, the mountain man who, as hunter and prospector, had explored the deepest recesses of the Cascades. He had been engaged to guide a railroad surveying party across the mountains, and just as the party was about to start he approached the chief and demanded an advance to enable him to buy his outfit for the trip. "How much do you want?" asked the chief, rather anxiously, lest Packwood should overdraw his prospective wages. "Well, about two dollars and a half," was the reply; and at the camp-fire that evening, being asked if he had bought his outfit, Packwood, thrusting his hand into his pocket, drew forth and exhibited with perfect seriousness and complacency his entire outfit,--a jack-knife and a plug of tobacco.

Half a dozen carriages rattled gayly out of Olympia in the cool of the morning, filled with a laughing, singing, frolicking bevy of young ladies and gentlemen. They were the Takhoma party starting on their adventurous trip, with a chosen escort accompanying them to their first camp. They rested several hours at Longmire's during the heat of the day, and the drive was then continued seven miles farther, to the Lacamas, an irregular-shaped prairie two miles in length by half a mile in breadth. Here live two of Mr. Longmire's sons. Their farms form the last settlement, and at the gate of Mr. Elkane Longmire's house the road ends. A wooded knoll overlooking the prairie, with a spring of water at its foot, was selected as the camp-ground. Some of the party stretched a large sail between the trees as a tent, others watered and fed the horses, and others busied themselves with the supper. Two eager sportsmen started after grouse, while their more practical companions bought half a dozen chickens, and had them soon dressed and sputtering over the fire. The shades of night were falling as the party sat down on the ground and partook of a repast fit for the Olympians, and with a relish sharpened by the long journey and a whole day's fast.

Early in the morning Mr. Longmire arrived in camp with two mules and a pack-horse, and our mountain outfit was rapidly made up into suitable bales and packed upon the horse and one of the mules, the other mule being reserved for Longmire's own riding. We assembled around the breakfast with spirits as gay and appetites as sharp as ever. Then, with many good-bys and much waving of handkerchiefs, the party broke up. Four roughly clad pedestrians moved off in single file, leading their pack animals, and looking back at every step to catch the last glimpse of the bright garments and fluttering cambrics, while the carriages drove rapidly down the road and disappeared in the dark, sullen forest.

We stepped off briskly, following a dim trail in an easterly course, and crossing the little prairie entered the timber. After winding over hilly ground for about three miles, we descended into the Nisqually bottom and forded a fine brook at the foot of the hill. For the next ten miles our route lay across the bottom, and along the bank of the river, passing around logs, following old, dry beds of the river and its lateral sloughs, ankle-deep in loose sand, and forcing our way through dense jungles of vine-maple. The trail was scarcely visible, and much obstructed by fallen trees and underbrush, and its difficulties were aggravated by the bewildering tracks of Indians who had lately wandered about the bottom in search of berries or rushes. We repeatedly missed the trail, and lost hours in retracing our steps and searching for the right course. The weather was hot and sultry, and rendered more oppressive by the dense foliage; myriads of gnats and mosquitoes tormented us and drove our poor animals almost frantic; and our thirst, aggravated by the severe and unaccustomed toil, seemed quenchless. At length we reached the ford of the Nisqually. Directly opposite, a perpendicular bluff of sand and gravel in alternate strata rose to the height of two hundred and fifty feet, its base washed by the river and its top crowned with firs. The stream was a hundred yards wide, waist-deep, and very rapid. Its waters were icy cold, and of a milk-white hue. This color is the characteristic of glacial rivers. The impalpable powder of thousands of tons of solid rocks ground up beneath the vast weight and resistless though imperceptible flow of huge glaciers, remains in solution in these streams, and colors them milk-white to the sea. Leading the animals down the bank and over a wide, dry bar of cobblestones, we stood at the brink of the swift, turbulent river, and prepared to essay its passage. Coleman mounted behind Van Trump on the little saddle-mule, his long legs dangling nearly to the ground, one hand grasping his Alpine staff, the other the neck-rope of the pack-mule, which Longmire bestrode. Longmire led in turn the pack-horse, behind whose bulky load was perched the other member of the party. The cavalcade, linked together in this order, had but just entered the stream when Coleman dropped the neckrope he was holding. The mule, bewildered by the rush and roar of the waters, turned directly down-stream, and in another instant our two pack animals, with their riders, would have been swept away in the furious rapids, had not Longmire with great presence of mind turned their erratic course in the right direction and safely brought them to the opposite shore. Following the bottom along the river for some distance, we climbed up the end of the bluff already mentioned, by a steep zigzag trail, and skirted along its brink for a mile. Far below us on the right rushed the Nisqually. On the left the bluff fell off in a steep hillside thickly clothed with woods and underbrush, and at its foot plowed the Owhap, a large stream emptying into the Nisqually just below our ford. Another mile through the woods brought us out upon the Mishell Prairie, a beautiful, oval meadow of a hundred acres, embowered in the tall, dense fir forest, with a grove of lofty, branching oaks at its farther extremity, and covered with green grass and bright flowers. It takes its name from the Mishell River, which empties into the Nisqually a mile above the prairie.

We had marched sixteen miles. The packs were gladly thrown off beneath a lofty fir; the animals were staked out to graze. A spring in the edge of the woods afforded water, and while Mr. Coleman busied himself with his pipe, his flask, his note-book, his sketch-book, and his pouch of multifarious odds and ends, the other members of the party performed the duties incident to camp-life: made the fire, brought water, spread the blankets, and prepared supper. The flags attached to our Alpine staffs waved gayly overhead, and the sight of their bright folds fluttering in the breeze deepened the fixed resolve to plant them on Takhoma's hoary head, and made failure seem impossible. Mr. Coleman announced the altitude of Mishell Prairie as eight hundred feet by barometer. By an unlucky fall the thermometer was broken.

The march was resumed early next morning. As we passed the lofty oaks at the end of the little prairie, "On that tree," said Longmire, pointing out one of the noblest, "Maxon's company hanged two Indians in the war of '56. Ski-hi and his band, after many depredations upon the settlements, were encamped on the Mishell, a mile distant, in fancied security, when Maxon and his men surprised them and cut off every soul except the two prisoners whom they hanged here."

For eight miles the trail led through thick woods, and then, after crossing a wide "burn," past a number of deserted Indian wigwams, where another trail from the Nisqually plains joined ours, it descended a gradual slope, traversed a swampy thicket and another mile of heavy timber, and debouched on the Mishell River. This is a fine, rapid, sparkling stream, knee-deep and forty feet wide, rippling and dashing over a gravelly bed with clear, cold, transparent water. The purity of the clear water, so unlike the yeasty Nisqually, proves that the Mishell is no glacial river. Rising in an outlying range to the northwest of Takhoma, it flows in a southwest course to its confluence with the Nisqually near our previous night's camp. We unsaddled for the noon-rest. Van Trump went up the stream, fishing; Longmire crossed to look out the trail ahead, and Coleman made tea solitaire.

An hour passed, and Longmire returned. "The trail is blind," said he, "and we have no time to lose." Just then Van Trump returned; and the little train was soon in readiness to resume the tramp. Longmire rode his mule across the stream, telling us to drive the pack-animals after him and follow by a convenient log near by. As the mule attempted to climb a low place in the opposite bank, which offered an apparently easy exit from the river, his hind legs sank in a quicksand, he sat down quickly, if not gracefully, and, not fancying that posture, threw himself clear under water. His dripping rider rose to his feet, flung the bridle-rein over his arm, and, springing up the bank at a more practicable point, strode along the trail with as little delay and as perfect unconcern as though an involuntary ducking was of no more moment than climbing over a log.

The trail was blind. Longmire scented it through thickets of salal, fern, and underbrush, stumbling over roots, vines, and hollows hidden in the rank vegetation, now climbing huge trunks that the animals could barely scramble over, and now laboriously working his way around some fallen giant and traveling two hundred yards in order to gain a dozen yards on the course. The packs, continually jammed against trees and shaken loose by this rough traveling, required frequent repacking--no small task. At the very top of a high, steep hill, up which we had laboriously zigzagged shortly after crossing the Mishell, the little packhorse, unable to sustain the weight of the pack, which had shifted all to one side, fell and rolled over and over to the bottom. Bringing up the goods and chattels one by one on our own shoulders to the top of the hill, we replaced the load and started again. The course was in a southerly direction, over high rolling ground of good clay soil, heavily timbered, with marshy swales at intervals, to the Nisqually River again, a distance of twelve miles. We encamped on a narrow flat between the high hill just descended and the wide and noisy river, near an old ruined log-hut, the former residence of a once famed Indian medicine man, who, after the laudable custom of his race, had expiated with his life his failure to cure a patient.

Early next morning we continued our laborious march along the right bank of the Nisqually. Towards noon we left the river, and after thridding in an easterly course a perfect labyrinth of fallen timber for six miles, and forcing our way with much difficulty through the tangled jungle of an extensive vine-maple swamp, at length crossed Silver Creek and gladly threw off the packs for an hour's rest.

A short distance after crossing Silver Creek the trail emerged upon more open ground, and for the first time the Nisqually Valley lay spread out in view before us. On the left stretched a wall of steep, rocky mountains, standing parallel to the course of the river and extending far eastward, growing higher and steeper and more rugged as it receded from view. At the very extremity of this range Takhoma loomed aloft, its dome high above all others and its flanks extending far down into the valley, and all covered, dome and flanks, with snow of dazzling white, in striking contrast with the black basaltic mountains about it. Startlingly near it looked to our eyes, accustomed to the restricted views and gloom of the forest.

After our noon rest we continued our journey up the valley, twisting in and out among the numerous trunks of trees that encumbered the ground, and after several hours of tedious trudging struck our third camp on Copper Creek, the twin brother to Silver Creek, just at dusk. We were thoroughly tired, having made twenty miles in thirteen hours of hard traveling.

Starting at daylight next morning, we walked two miles over rough ground much broken by ravines, and then descended into the bed of the Nisqually at the mouth of Goat Creek, another fine stream which empties here. We continued our course along the river bed, stumbling over rocky bars and forcing our way through dense thickets of willow, for some distance, then ascended the steep bank, went around a high hill over four miles of execrable trail, and descended to the river again, only two miles above Goat Creek. At this point the Takhoma branch or North Fork joins the Nisqually. This stream rises on the west side of Takhoma, is nearly as large as the main river, and like it shows its glacial origin by its milk-white water and by its icy cold, terribly swift and furious torrent. Crossing the Takhoma branch, here thirty yards wide, we kept up the main river, crossing and recrossing the stream frequently, and toiling over rocky bars for four miles, a distance which consumed five hours, owing to the difficulties of the way. We then left the Nisqually, turning to the right and traveling in a southerly course, and followed up the bed of a swampy creek for half a mile, then crossed a level tract much obstructed with fallen timber, then ascended a burnt ridge, and followed it for two miles to a small, marshy prairie in a wide canyon or defile closed in by rugged mountains on either side, and camped beside a little rivulet on the east side of the prairie. This was Bear Prairie, the altitude of which by the barometer was 2630 feet. The canyon formed a low pass between the Nisqually and Cowlitz rivers, and the little rivulet near which we camped flowed into the latter stream. The whole region had been swept by fire: thousands of giant trunks stood blackened and lifeless, the picture of desolation.

As we were reclining on the ground around the campfire, enjoying the calm and beatific repose which comes to the toil-worn mountaineer after his hearty supper, one of these huge trunks, after several warning creaks, came toppling and falling directly over our camp. All rushed to one side or another to avoid the impending crash. As one member of the party, hastily catching up in one hand a frying-pan laden with tin plates and cups, and in the other the camp kettle half full of boiling water, was scrambling away, his foot tripped in a blackberry vine and he fell outstretched at full length, the much-prized utensils scattering far and wide, while the falling tree came thundering down in the rear, doing no other damage, however, than burying a pair of blankets.